00 Eoom in tT)e Snn 

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<0tl)er 3fnterpretation;3 




Class 

Book 

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COFXRIGHT DEPOSm 




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iSo Eoom in ttie 3nn 



anti 



(©tfter Snterpretations; 



Chosen from the writings of 

^efa. C. 3. ^cofielb, ©.©. 

Author of "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth,'' 
" Plain Papers on the Holy Spirit," "Lectures 
on Galatians," "Addresses on Prophecy " j 
editor Scofield Reference Bible, and 
author of the Scofield Bible Cor- 
respondence Course 



m 



By 

iWarp €milj» l^tiXf 



Oxford University Press 

AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 West 3aND Steeet 

Honbon, tCoronto, iflelbourm, anti JSomita? 

Humphrey Milford 






^•s*^ 



Copyright, igis 
BY Oxford University Press 

AMERICAN BRANCH 



0EC26i9i3 

€/CI,A36i499 



Contents 



PAGE 

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS NIGHT . . i 
"Thou shalt call his name Jesus." Matt. 
i. 21. 

II 

THE FIRST SIN . 5 

" As by one man sin entered into the 
world, and death by sin; and so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned." RoM. v. 12. 

Ill 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ... 14 
"No man is justified by the law in the 
sight of God." Gal. iii. 11. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 24 

" The voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." 
Luke iii. 4. 

V 

A BLIND MAN HEALED .... 28 
" I am the Light of the world." John ix. 5. 



Contend 

VI 

PAGE 

THE NEW BIRTH 37 

"Ye must be born again." John iii. 7. 

VII 

JACOB'S WELL 41 

" The water which I shall give." John iv. 
14. 

VIII 

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS .... 43 
"Lazarus, come forth." John xi. 43. 

IX 

THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS ... 48 
"The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." 
Mark v. 39. 

X 

PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS . . 53 
"And five of them were wise, and five 
foolish." Matt. xxv. 2. 

XI 

THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY . . 59 

" Then took Mary a pound of ointment 

of spikenard, very costly, and anointed 

the feet of Jesus." John xii. 3. 

XII 
JESUS BEFORE PILATE 65 

" And Pilate gave sentence that it should 
be as they required." Luke xxiii. 24. 



Contents; 

XIII 

PAGE 

THE ATONEMENT 69 

" Christ died for our sins, according to the 
scriptures." i Cor. xv. 3. 

XIV 
THE LAVER OF CLEANSING ... 78 

" He . . . began to wash the disciples' 
feet.'' John xiii. 5. 

XV 
THE RESURRECTION 84 

"He is not here: for he is risen, as he 
said." Matt, xxviii. 6. 

XVI 
JESUS APPEARS TO MARY .... 92 
'* Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weep- 
cst thou? " John xx. 15. 

XVII 
THE BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 96 
"The Holy Ghost fell on all them which 
heard the word." Acts x. 44. 

XVIII 
THE CONVERSION OF SAUL .... 103 
"And he said, Who art thou. Lord?" 
Acts ix. 5. 

XIX 

ALMOST PERSUADED 109 

" Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost 
thou persuadest me to be a Christian." 
Acts xxvi. 28. 



Contend 

XX 

PAGE 

THE NEW LIFE 113 

" I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me." Phil. iv. 13. 

XXI 

THE FIERY FURNACE 118 

**Who is that God who shall deliver you 
out of my hands.'*" Dan. iii. 15. 

XXII 

DAVID AND GOLIATH . . . . .124. 
" I come to thee in the name of the Lord 
of hosts." I Sam. xvii. 45. 

XXIII 

JOSEPH IN PRISON 128 

" And Joseph's master took him, and put 
him into the prison." Gen. xxxix. 20. 

XXIV 
DAVID AND JONATHAN . . . . .135 
"And Jonathan loved him as his own 
soul." I Sam. xviii. i. 

XXV 

THE GREATEST THING 142 

"The greatest of these is love." i CoR. 
xiii. 13. 

XXVI 
JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN . . .149 
" And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come 
near unto me, I pray you." Gen. xlv. 4. 



jforetoorb 

^TpHIS book is made of carefully 
•*• chosen selections from the 
writings and public addresses of 
Dr. C. I. Scofield. 

The principle of selection has 
been to take from those writings 
only expositions and interpretations 
of Scripture upon subjects of vital 
import to Christian faith and life. 

In an age so intense and exact- 
ing as ours, there is scant time for 
the reading which nurtures the 
spiritual life, and it is hoped that 
the brevity and clearness with 
which these great themes are treat- 
ed may bring them home helpfully 
even to the life most filled and en- 
grossed. 

M. E. R. 

Harrisburg, 

October the first, 
1913* 



Unterpretattons; 



THE FIRST CHRISTMAS 
NIGHT 



" Thou shah call his name Jesus." 

Matt. i. 21. 



^T^HE unique significance of this 
^ nativity, the fact that distin- 
guishes it from every other birth 
in all earth's history, is that the 
Babe, truly born of a human 
mother, was *' The Word'' who 
was ** in the beginning with God, 
and was God " — Mary's Babe, but 
'* Immanuel," begotten of the Holy 
Creator Spirit. In the providential 
ordering of human affairs, concern- 
ing whose ends the actors them- 
selves frequently have no thought, 
all the world was taxed (or en- 
rolled) that a Jewish maiden might 
be brought to Bethlehem in fulfil- 
ment of a prophecy uttered seven 
hundred years before. 



The unique 
birth. 



John i. I. 

Isa. vii. 14. 
Luke i. 35. 



Luke ii. i. 



Micah V. 2. 



Mo B^oom in tbt 3nn 



Literal 
fulfilment. 

Isa. vii. 14. 

Micah V. 2. 



Dan. ix. 25, 
26. 



T/t^ crowd- 
ed inn. 



Luke ii. 7. 



Prophecy is always literally ful- 
filled. Isaiah had predicted that 
The Messiah should be born of a 
virgin, Micah that He should be 
born in a particular village, and 
Daniel that He should be born at 
a particular time. The slow centu- 
ries passed, but when the time came 
each prediction was fulfilled; not in 
some so-called '' spiritual " sense, 
but with exact literalness. 

The Lord of glory was cradled 
in a manger, the immediate reason 
being that the inn was overcrowd- 
ed; the moral reason that the one 
universal Exemplar and Friend 
must begin His life under circum- 
stances so lowly that no son of 
Adam could ever feel that Jesus 
was good because more fortunate- 
ly circumstanced than he. He got 
underneath the most abject. 

There was no room for Him in 
the inn. It was not hostility which 
excluded Him. The inn was pre- 



anb (letter Snterpretationss 



occupied. It is so to-day with 
hearts, houses, time, business, pleas- 
ure — there is *' no room;" every 
inch of space is filled. People do 
not hate Jesus — they have no room 
for Him. 

The supremest emotion aroused 
by the birth of Jesus was joy. He 
was born to toil, to suffer, to die — 
but angels and men rejoiced. 

The first to see and wonder were 
the shepherds, the simple ones; it 
required a star and a council of 
scribes to get three wise men to 
Jesus. 

The wise men did very well so 
long as they followed the star, but 
when they came to great Jerusalem 
they forsook the star to ask coun- 
sel of Herod, and the Scribes. 
They found the King indeed, but at 
the cost of the slaughter of the in- 
nocents. And still many innocents 
are slaughtered by seeking the wis- 



loy bells. 



Luke ii. 
10-14. 



Luke ii. 
8-18. 

Matt. xi. 
25. 

Matt. ii. 

1-12. 



The foolish 
wise men. 

Matt ii. 2, 
10. 



I Cor. ii. 
5-9. 



Matt. xi. 

25. 



Mo l^oom in tlje 3nn 



dom of God through mere knowl- 
edge. 



The 

three-fold 

Saviour, 

Lukeii. ii. 



1 I>ti, ii. 
24. 

2 Cor. V. 



Heb. X. 
10-18. 



John iii. 3 ; 
14-16. 

Gal. ii. 20. 

Heb. vii. 
24, 25. 

Rom. viii. 



Gal. V. 16, 
17. 

Rom. viii. 



I Thess. iv. 
14-16. 



He was born a Saviour. The 
Epistles take up this saving work 
of Christ the Lord, and show that 
He is a Saviour in a three-fold sense 
— by His sacrificial death He saves 
His people from judgment because 
of the guilt of their sins. '' For he 
hath made him to be sin for us, 
who knew no sin ; that we might be 
made the righteousness of God in 
him.'' 

By His resurrection-life, impart- 
ed to His people, through the new 
birth, by His intercession and 
shepherdly care and by the indwell- 
ing Spirit, He saves them from the 
power of sin, that is from the ne- 
cessity of living in known sin. 
** For the law of the Spirit of life 
in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
from the law of sin and death." 

By His second coming, He will 
save His people from the presence 



antr 0^tx interpretations; 



of, and conflict with sin. ** For 
the trumpet shall sound and the 
dead shall be raised incorruptible, 
and we shall be changed." 

He took upon Himself the whole 
work of salvation, and therefore 
salvation, from beginning to end, 
belongs to Christ, and to Him 
alone. The sinner trusts, Christ 
saves; the saint yields, the Holy 
Spirit gives victory. 



THE FIRST SIN 

"As by one man sin entered into the 
world, and death by sin; and so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned." Rom. v. 12. 

OTRICTLY speaking, the fall of 
^ man was not the beginning of 
sin. Sin entered the world by one 
man, but sin had already entered 
the universe. Isaiah traces sin back 
to its true beginning, in the fall of 
Satan. '* How art thou fallen from 



I Cor. XV. 
Heb. ix. 28. 



Heb. X. 12. 
Heb. i. 3. 



The fatal 
" I will." 
Rom. V. 12. 



Isa. xiv. 
12-16. 



j^ 3l^om in t^t Snn 



The uni- 
versal ex- 
perience. 
Gen. iii. 
1-6. 

Rom. iii. 

I John iii. 
4. 



Luke X. 29. 



Isa. lix. 2. 



heaven, O Lucifer, son of the 
morning. . . . For thou hast said 
in thine heart, I will ascend into 
heaven, I will exalt my throne 
above the stars of God. ... I 
will be like the most High." Sin 
entered the universe of God when 
a splendid angel said '' I will." 
The essence of sin is self-will, or 
lawlessness; as the essence of holi- 
ness is loving subjection to the will 
of God. 

That the history of man's fall 
should be thought mere allegory by 
any descendant of Adam is strange 
indeed, for, in all essential particu- 
lars, it has been re-enacted in every 
human life. In every life there has 
been a first sin; in every life that 
sin consisted in violating some part 
of the known will of God; in every 
life that sin wrought to separate the 
sinner from God; in every life there 
was some poor effort at self-justifi- 
cation; and to every such life there 



anb 0tfitt interpretations; 



comes a seeking God offering salva- 
tion; and, in this endlessly repeated 
tragedy, the tempter has been Sa- 
tan. Why, then, should it be 
thought incredible that what has 
been true in all subsequent human 
lives should have been true in the 
first human life? 

Satan's method is to insinuate a 
doubt: *' Yea, hath God said ye 
shall not eat of every tree of the 
garden? " So Satan begins by sug- 
gesting that the will of God for us 
is, at some point, hard and ungra- 
cious; that some forbidden thing 
might have been left within our 
liberty of choice. '' I knew thee 
that thou art an hard man,'' is the 
unspoken complaint of our hearts 
when Satan tempts us to depart 
from the will of God. It is the 
sure danger sign. Let us learn to 
be affrighted whenever we detect 
the smallest murmuring against 
God. 



John iii. i6. 



2 Tim. ii. 
26. 



Satan*s 
method. 
Gen. iii. i. 



Matt. XXV. 
24. 



i^ 3i^om in tte inn 



Gen. iii. 4. 



Gen. iis. 5. 



Gen. ill. 6. 



Having Instilled a doubt as to 
God's love, Satan goes on to ques- 
tion the truth of God's word. 
" Ye shall not surely die." Every 
denial of retribution for sin is insti- 
gated by Satan, and directly contra- 
dicts, not alone God's word, but 
the testimony of nature and reason. 

The adversary's third step is an 
appeal to pride, especially pride of 
intellect. *' Ye shall be as gods 
knowing." 

In the characteristic modern atti- 
tude toward revealed truth these 
temptations meet. For that atti- 
tude is one of denial of the plenary 
inspiration of the Scriptures, and 
this denial is justified by appeal to 
proud human learning. 

" And when the woman saw that 
the tree was good for food, and 
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and 
a tree to be desired to make one 
wise, she took of the fruit thereof. 



anb 0tf)tx SnterpretationjS 



and did eat, and gave also unto her 
husband with her; and he did eat." 
Here is a perfect illustration of 
worldliness — '' The lust of the 
flesh; and the lust of the eyes, and 
the pride of life." 

The immediate consequence was 
alienation from God. For the 
first time these high creatures of 
God felt instinctively their unfit- 
ness for His presence. The ulti- 
mate consequences of sin they could 
not then know, but soon learned — 
physical death, and also that aliena- 
tion from the life of God which is 
spiritual death. " Having the un- 
derstanding darkened, being alien- 
ated from the life of God." " And 
the eyes of them both were opened, 
and they knew that they were 
naked; and they sewed fig leaves 
together, and made themselves 
aprons." The futile effort of sinful 
man to clothe himself for God's 
presence ! 



I John ii. 
i6. 



The two 
deaths. 

Gen. iv. 19. 
Gen. ill. 7. 

Isa. Ixiv. 6. 



Eph. iv. 18. 



Rom. X. 3. 



lO 



i^o 3i^oom in tfje inn 



Righteous- 
ness, 



Luke xviii. 

12. 



Phil. iii. 6. 



Rom. iii. 



Gen. iii. 9. 



In Scripture the garment is the 
constant symbol of righteousness, 
and righteousness is that which fits 
for God's presence. Neither self- 
righteousness, '' I fast twice in the 
week, I give tithes of all that I 
possess," or legal righteousness, 
'^ Touching the righteousness which 
is in the law, blameless," but only 
God's righteousness, '* Even the 
righteousness of God which is by 
faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and 
upon all them that believe," en- 
ables sinful man to stand in the 
presence of God. 

^'And the LORD called unto 
Adam and said unto him. Where art 
thou? " The effect of the first sin 
was to bring Jehovah down to 
seek, and to save that which was 
lost. Thus sin broke God's crea- 
tion rest, and from the first sin of 
the first man until now. He has 
been unweariedly seeking the lost 



anU 0t\)tx interpretations; 



II 



'' But Jesus answered them, My 
Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work." 

'' And the LORD God said unto 
the serpent . . . upon thy belly 
shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou 
eat all the days of thy life." Be- 
fore the curse, the serpent was not 
only the '' most subtle," but prob- 
ably also the most beautiful of crea- 
tures below man. Even as cursed, 
a serpent cannot make an ungrace- 
ful movement. But, whatever form 
of beauty this creature may have 
borne, it lent itself to Satan's uses, 
and now, cursed of God, every ac- 
tual serpent is a hieroglyph of sin; 
an awful illustration of Satan's 
power to degrade and curse. And 
Satan himself cannot escape the 
shame; '' And the great dragon was 
cast out, that old serpent called the 
devil, and Satan, which deceiveth 
the whole world " — so true is it 
that all men must choose to be eter- 



John V. 17. 



The ser- 
pent sym- 
bol. 



Rev. xii. 9. 



12 



Mo Eoom in tfje inn 



Num. xxi. 
9. 



John iii. 14. 



nally identified with either Satan or 
with Christ. 

A sin of Israel was punished by 
a plague of serpents, a method of 
retribution, which was perhaps de- 
signed to remind them of all that, 
from Eden on, had been the ter- 
rible message of that symbol. But 
how mysterious must the remedy 
have seemed; a serpent of brass 
made the object of saving faith! 
Some suggestion of the shame and 
humiliation of the cross may be 
found in the fact that Christ ap- 
propriated the brazen serpent type 
to Himself. '' And as Moses lifted 
up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be 
lifted up." 

But all this, though it prepares 
us to see that Christ ^' lifted up," 
after the analogy of the serpent of 
brass, is in some profound sense as- 
sociated with sin and the holy wrath 



anb 0tf)tv interpretations^ 



13 



of God against sin, does not ex- 
plain that association. Not until 
the final, terrible word of the Spirit 
by Paul do we come to that mys- 
tery, beyond whose frontiers no fi- 
nite mind may go. '' For he hath 
made him to be sin for us, who 
knew no sin; that we might be 
made the righteousness of God in 
him." This is the midnight hor- 
ror of the atoning work of Christ. 
That we might be made ^' the 
righteousness of God" (immeasu- 
rable height!) it was somehow 
necessary that He, the sinless and 
holy one, should be, in those awful 
hours, in some inscrutable sense 
'' made sin " — associated with the 
whole serpent symbolism, with the 
curse, with Satan's foulness, with 
man's shame, defilement and ruin — 
immeasurable depth! 

'' And I will put enmity between 
thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise 



2 Cor. V. 
21. 

Gal. iii. 13. 



The undy- 
ing enmity. 

Gen. iii. 15. 



14 



j^o Eoom in tJje inn 



/i ministry 
of death. 

Rom. iii. 

20. 

Gal. iii. lo. 



thy head and thou shalt bruise his 
heel " — the first promise of a Re- 
deemer. This is the seed, out 
of which grew the tree of the cross. 
It implies the final humiliation and 
defeat of Satan by Christ, the 
'' seed of the woman." 



THE TEN COMMAND- 
MENTS 

" No man Is justified by the law in the 
sight of God.'* Gal. iii. ii. 

^T^HE Divine purpose in the giv- 
-^ ing of the law was not salva- 
tion, for " By the deeds of the law 
there shall no flesh be justified in 
his sight," but conviction and con- 
demnation. '' For as many as are 
of the works of the law are under 
the curse." 

To see this is of the last impor- 
tance, if we are really to honor the 
law. So long as we regard the law 
as fatherly advice, or as a mere 



anb (letter Snterpretationjs 



15 



Ideal to be striven toward, trust- 
ing meanwhile the vague mercy of 
God to overlook our short-comings, 
and to accept our good intentions in 
the place of perfect obedience, we 
are steeling our consciences against 
the very work the law was set to 
do. 

But that is exactly what the Ga- 
latianism current in Christendom 
to-day is doing. The edge is gone 
from the law. No man feels con- 
demned, undone, and under the 
curse and wrath of the law, and of 
God, on account of his sins, for the 
reason that he keeps on honestly 
praying, when the commandments 
are read, '' Have mercy on me, O 
God, and incline my heart to keep 
thy law." The law is never hon- 
ored by the sinner until he accepts 
its deathful sentence, and turns in 
faith to the One who has, in his 
stead, suffered death. 



Gal 
19-2 
I, 2, 



1. 6; ii. 
I ; iii. 
24, 25. 



i6 



Mo 3^om in tfie 3nn 



Ex. XX. 

3-II. 



Luke X. 28. 



Ezk. xviii. 
4,20. 



Rom. Hi. 
19*23, 



The first table requires that God 
shall reign alone over our lives, the 
alone object of supreme love, wor- 
ship and reverence — indeed, the 
perfect summary of the first table, 
approved as such by Christ, is in 
the great formula, ''Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy strength and with all 
thy mind." In approving the sum- 
mary, the Lord added, " this do, 
and thou shalt live." 

The law is not a creed to be con- 
fessed, nor an ideal of human con- 
duct; it is a fiat of God, to which 
is attached the awful sanction, " the 
soul that sinneth it shall die," and 
there is but one plea possible to the 
sinner, " guilty." For the moment 
any mortal faces honestly that im- 
perative demand that he must love 
God with all his heart, soul, 
strength and mind, he sees that 
never for a fraction of a second. 



anb 0t^tt interpretations! 



17 



in all his life, has he kept the 
law. 

The lawyer, in the passage quot- 
ed from Luke, under the impact of 
Christ's tremendous demand for 
performance, and not mere effort 
or desire, should have fallen at His 
feet with a cry for mercy. He 
chose rather to '* justify himself." 
Alas! millions are going the same 
miserable way, holding the law for 
a counsel of God instead of a 
death-sentence. A criminal *' es- 
tablishes " the law, when he comes 
before the Court and pleads guilty, 
not when he idly talks about re- 
forming and turning over a new 
leaf. With all his reformation, he 
is just a law-breaker seeking to 
evade the just sentence of the law. 

Just as the first table of the law 
is summarized in the demand that 
God shall be loved with the whole 
of every part of man's complex 



Luke X. 28 . 
Rom. X. 5. 



Luke X. 29. 



Rom. iii. 
31. 



Twice 
guilty. 



i8 



Mo 3i^oom in tfie inn 



Luke X. 
29-37. 



Christ 

saves. 

Gal. iii. 23. 



being, so the second table is sum- 
marized in the demand that our 
fellowman shall be loved up to the 
measure of love for self. 

The neighbor is any human being 
to whom we can do good. It is not 
a sentimental good feeling and be- 
nevolent desire toward all men, but 
an active service toward all, for 
love's sake ; a service, the only limi- 
tation of which is opportunity. 
When this is seen, the second table 
becomes as crushingly convictive as 
the first. 

Have we sought as earnestly, 
toiled as hard, sacrificed as much to 
do, as we have to get? Have we 
bestowed as much thought, solici- 
tude and active effort upon others 
as upon ourselves ? Such questions 
answer themselves to any sincere 
and honest soul. Here again our 
only possible plea is '' guilty." 

And then the law has done its 
work, and we are '' shut up " to 



anti 0ti}tt interpretations 



19 



the mercy of God In Christ Jesus. 
We have no hope of life eternal 
through a law which only shows us 
our guilt, and pronounces upon us 
a righteous sentence of death. But 
Jesus redeems us, not alone from 
the curse of the law, but from the 
law itself, that the blessing of Abra- 
ham may come to us through Christ 
and that we may receive the adop- 
tion of sons. '' The law was our 
schoolmaster to bring us unto 
Christ that we might be justified 
by faith, but after that faith is come 
we are no longer under the school- 
master." 

Does God then, when acting in 
grace, abandon the righteousness of 
the law, and leave the believer to 
** sin, that grace may abound''? 
God forbid! The believer is not 
under the law, but that is a half- 
truth which may be wrested to the 
doing of great mischief. The 
other, and inseparable half, is that 



Gal. iv. 5. 



Gal. iii. 
24-25. 



Grace gives 
victory, 

Rom. vi. 
I, 2. 



20 



iSo Eoom in tfje 3Jnn 



Rom. vi. 
14. 



2 Pet. i. 4. 

I John V. 
II, 12. 



I Cor. vi. 
19. 

Rom. viii. 
2-4. 



Law does 
not sanc- 
tify. 



the believer is under grace. ** For 
sin shall not have dominion over 
you : for ye are not under the law, 
but under grace," and grace, 
through the impartation of the Di- 
vine nature, of the resurrection life 
of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, 
fulfils, in the believer, that right- 
eousness of the law, which was 
never for one fleeting moment ful- 
filled by him. 

There are two ways, then, of 
thwarting God's intent in the giv- 
ing of the law : the sinner thwarts 
that intent by holding it for an 
ideal to be approximated, the 
Christian thwarts it by seeking to 
use it as a means of sanctification. 
The analogue of all this is found, 
for the Christian of to-day, in the 
contrast between the experiences of 
the seventh and eighth chapters of 
Romans. The former is the experi- 
ence of a Christian in whom rages 
the conflict between his new and 



anb ©tf^tx interpretations^ 



21 



spiritual nature received in regen- 
eration, and his old *' flesh," the 
natural man. *' To will is present 
with him," because the new man 
yearns to do the will of God, but 
how to ** perform that which is 
good he finds not," for the old man 
is strong. 

Moreover the law is a continual 
torment to him, for, being born 
again, he is able to ^' delight in the 
law of God after the inward man." 
Striving to form a character under 
law, he but finds ^^ another law " in 
his members, warring against the 
law of his mind and bringing him 
into captivity to the law of sin, 
which is in his members. It is, alas ! 
the average Christian experience. 

But the eighth of Romans is an 
experience pitched in another key. 
Where all was wretchedness and 
defeat in the seventh chapter, now 
all is triumph and exultation. What 



Conscience 
tormented. 



Rom. vii. 



Rom. vii. 
23. 



Victory 
through 
the Spirit. 

Rom. viii. 
2, 31-39. 



22 



J^o i^oom in tije 3nn 



I Cor. vi. 
19. 

Eph. V. 18. 



£ph. i. 3. 



Rom. viii. 
16, 17. 

John xvii. 



Phil. i. 29; 
iii. 10; I 
Pet. ii. II. 



Eph. V. 
18-20. 



The law 
fulfilled. 



makes the difference? One fact, 
and but one. The man of the sev- 
enth of Romans is a Christian, re- 
generated, justified, saved, and 
possessing, also, the Holy Spirit. 
The man of the eighth of Romans 
is the same man, but now filled with 
the Spirit. The believer is ** blessed 
with all spiritual blessings," but ob- 
serve where, '' in the heavenly," in 
Christ Jesus. *' The heavenly " Is 
the sphere of the believer's present 
association with Christ in position, 
service, suffering and world rejec- 
tion. When he is maintaining in 
experience his" association with 
Christ, in these four particulars he 
is '' in the heavenly in Christ Je- 
sus," where all his blessings are. 
But this can be maintained only 
through the Holy Spirit in His full- 
ness. 

The eighth of Romans, like the 
fourth and fifth of Galatians, opens 
the secret of victory through the 



anb 0^tv Mttxpxttationi 



23 



law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus. *^ Love worketh no ill to his 
neighbor." If I love my neighbor, 
then the law of love, '* written not 
with ink, but with the Spirit of the 
living God; not in tables of stone, 
but in fleshly tables of the heart," 
will govern my conduct as the ex- 
ternal law never did, and never 
could. I will not even desire to 
wrong my neighbor whom I love, 
for adultery, murder, theft, and 
false witness will be abhorrent; nor 
will it be possible for me to covet 
anything which, if granted to me, 
would deprive my neighbor. And 
my love for my neighbor will regu- 
late my habits as well, for the 
constraint of love will make me 
question these by the supreme test 
— will this harm or will it help my 
neighbor? The love of God Him- 
self is shed abroad in our hearts by 
the Holy Spirit, and '^ love is the 
fulfilling of the law." 



Rom. viii. 
3. 



Gal. V. 
16-18. 



2 Cor. iii. 



I Cor. vi 
10-13. 



Rom. V. 5. 



Rom. xiii. 



24 



i^ 3i^om m tfie Mn 



John the 
Baptist. 



Mai. iii. i. 

Luke vii. 
26, 27. 



John i. 29, 
30; iii. 29. 



Matt. iii. 
7-10. 



His testi- 
mony. 
Matt. iii. 
10. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 

"The voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." 

Luke iii. 4. 

JOHN the Baptist is the last of 
the distinctively Jewish line of 
prophets; the last and greatest of 
these. Indeed, he was more than a 
prophet, for he was himself the sub- 
ject of prophecy — *' This is he of 
whom it IS written, Behold, I send 
my messenger.'' Unlike the proph- 
ets who saw the .promise of the 
Messiah afar off, it was the privi- 
lege of John to point Him out, and 
it was his peculiar joy that he heard 
the Bridegroom's voice. He 
showed successive generations how 
to '' prepare the way of the Lord " 
by testifying against sin; and that 
not abstractly, but personally and 
concretely, sternly insisting on re- 
pentance. 

He testified to Jesus as the Ax 
Wielder. It was no longer a ques- 



anb 0^tx Snterpretationsi 



25 



tlon of pruning the tree of fallen 
human nature. That was law- 
work. The whole history of Israel 
under the old covenant was a dem- 
onstration of the futihty of that 
method; now the ^^ ax is laid unto 
the root of the tree." Jesus is the 
Baptiser with the Holy Ghost and 
with fire. He cuts down the old 
tree, but plants a new one. '' But 
one mightier than I cometh. . . . 
He shall baptise you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire.'' Jesus wields 
the separating fan. ^^ He will thor- 
oughly purge his floor." Just as 
surely as there is a heavenly garner 
for the wheat of God, just so sure- 
ly there is '^ fire unquenchable " for 
the tares. 

Jesus is the Eternal One. ** He 
was before me." This, if Jesus was 
not pre-existent, was not true, for 
John the Baptist was, humanly, the 
elder of the two. 



Isa. V. 1-7. 



Matt. 
11; Ac 
5-8; ii. 



Luke 
16. 



Luke 
17. 



Matt. 
30, 4i< 



ts 1. 
33- 



Xlll. 

42. 



John i. 13. 

Luke i. 25, 
26. 



26 



Mo 3l^om in tfie 3Jnn 



John i. 29. 



Matt, iil 9. 



Repent- 
ance. 

Matt. iii. 2. 



Jesus IS the ** Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sin of the world." 
Every lamb sacrificed by the ancient 
people of God, prefigured this final 
Lamb, and had efficacy because of 
Him. And just here is the heart of 
John's great ministry. It was con- 
victive because the ** way of the 
Lord " was a way of holiness, and 
in that way none could walk who 
made light of sin, or sought refuges 
of lies in Abrahamic ancestry, or 
like peculiar privileges. Men must 
be convicted of sin, because the 
mission of Christ is to save from 
sin, and only those who feel their 
need will seek a Saviour. Convic- 
tion prepares the way for Christ. 

John's ministry demanded repent- 
ance, and defined it, because while 
repentance saves no one, no one is 
saved without it. It is not feeling 
badly about sin; it is, in consent and 
will, forsaking sin. Only Jesus can 
save His people from their sins, but 



anb 0t1)tt interpretations; 



27 



repentance brings every sin to Je- 
sus to be put away. But all this is 
only preliminary to the presenta- 
tion of Christ as God's own Lamb, 
whose sacrifice puts away sin. 
This, and this only, is *' the Gos- 
pel.'' All other of John's words 
and acts were preparatory, not for 
the church, and salvation by grace, 
but for the earth-kingdom of 
Christ. 

Conviction, repentance, restitu- Luke 1. 17. 
tion, baptism, confession of sins — 
these were kingdom teachings, and 
therefore legal, not gracious. 



And John could thus minister 
because he sought nothing for him- 
self. Save Jesus, no other man has 
been so truly humble. To those 
who would know concerning him he 
said, '* I am the voice of one cryung 
in the wilderness." Of Christ he 
said, *' I am not worthy to stoop 
down," even to do a servant's work. 
It was his joy, not envy, that men 



Humility. 



John i. 23. 



Mark i. 7. 



a8 



j^o 3l^om in tfie 3nn 



John iii. 
26-30. 



forsook him to follow Jesus: '* He 
must increase, but I must decrease." 



The mys* 
tery of per- 
mitted evil. 



Matt. xiv. 
1-12. 

Matt. V. 1 1 ; 
xxiv. 8-13; 
Rev. vi. 9- 
ii;xiii. is; 
XX. 4. 



Luke vii. 
24-29. 



And In the death of this humblest 
of God's servants the mystery of 
permitted evil reaches its deepest 
depth. A lewd woman hated him, 
a dancing girl asked for his head, 
a filthy despot commanded it to be 
brought ! For John, truly, a swift 
and welcome release. This is the 
age of martyrdom, and ere long 
martyr blood will again become a 
very flood. 

But when John was dead the Son 
of God preached his funeral ser- 
mon! 



A BLIND MAN HEALED 



" He saw 
a man." 

John ix. I. 



"I am the Light of the world." 

John ix. 5. 

" AND as Jesus passed by, he 
-^^ saw a man who was blind 
from his birth." 

Now what will happen? For, 



anb (J^tijer interpretations; 



29 



remember this blind man Is a test, a 
touchstone, to bring out what is in 
Jesus — and to bring out what is in 
the disciples, too. For every mis- 
fortune, every calamity, every sor- 
row, every deprivation and tragedy 
of life, is a touchstone for the 
passerby. The beggar on Dives' 
steps was God's testing of Dives. 

For the disciples the blind man 
was an occasion for rabbinic hair- 
splitting. *' Who did the sin, this 
man or his parents?" To Jesus 
the blind man was an occasion for 
** working the works of God " for 
his healing and saving. Perhaps no 
passage brings into sharper con- 
trast the mind of Christ, and the 
average minds of the average dis- 
ciples. We do not care greatly 
about the individual, the man. 
Everything is a '^ problem." Pov- 
erty, crime, weakness, old age, sick- 
ness, all suffering — these are 
'' problems." In their presence we 



Matt. XXV. 
31-46. 



Luke xvi. 
19-31. 



John ix. 2. 

Scientif- 
ic'' cruelty. 



John ix. 
3,4. 



" Man ' 
prob- 
lem r'' 



30 



Mo 3i^om in tfje 3nn 



ask our hard little questions about 
distribution of wealth, heredity, en- 
vironment, sanitation. 

The East Side festers and brawls 
and *' sells a girl for wine." We 
plant a *' settlement," and study the 
question scientifically. In other 
days, when men still believed in 
Divine power, the Five Points be- 
came intolerable, and Faith said, 
*' Let us plant the Gospel there," 
and lo ! the old miracles : the cap- 
tives are unbound, the filthy become 
clean, and the children's faces are 
happy. 

There is a scientific and police 
way of looking at crime and wretch- 
edness, and there is a Christ Je- 
sus way. One sees *' crime " — an 
abstract thing, or problem; the 
other sees a criminal, a soul lost to 
God, a life lost to humanity. 



Christ's 

way. 



I am saying nothing against the 
detective point of view, the reform- 



anb 0t))tv SnterpretationsJ 



31 



er's point of view, except that 
Christ was neither detective nor re- 
former. He was humanity's Priest, 
Sacrifice and Friend. Our ^' prob- 
lems " but touched Him with com- 
passion, and set Him to working 
the works of God. They set us to 
breeding bacilh from the agony of 
dumb animals. 

When Jesus announces Himself 
in some new character it is never an 
abstract thing, as a mere declara- 
tion of fact concerning Himself, 
but a revelation of something in 
Himself, which answers to human 
needs. And in John's account of 
Him, there is commonly an illustra- 
tive miracle. The Light of the 
world will give sight to the blind 
eyes of this man's body, but He will 
also give eyes to his soul. 

*' Jesus heard that they had cast 
him out; and when he had found 
him, he said unto him, Dost thou 
believe on the Son of God? He an- 



John viii. 
3-11. 



Revelation 

through 

deeds. 



John ix. 
5-7. 



John ix. 
34-38. 



32 



Mo i^om in tfje 3nn 



Faith is a 

living 

thing, 

John ix. 



John ix. 
17. 

John ix. 
38. 



The nrst 
need. 
Luke iv. 
18. 



swered and said, Who is he, Lord, 
that I might believe on him? And 
Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both 
seen him, and it is he that talketh 
with thee. And he said, Lord, I be- 
lieve. And he worshipped him." 

How the faith of that man grew ! 
Mark the stages — first he speaks of 
Him as '* A man that is called Je- 
sus," then as " a prophet " and then 
as *' the Son of God," and note 
the steadfastness with which, 
against all opposition and persua- 
sion, this young man stood manful- 
ly by his convictions. He could 
not answer the sophistries and dog- 
matisms with which his simple testi- 
mony was met, but he could stand 
by that testimony at all hazards. 
That was the simple manliness of 
him, and his reward was increase 
of knowledge and faith. 

Light is man's first need. He 
does not know himself, he does not 



anb 0ti)tv SnterpretationjS 



33 



know his state, he does not know 
God. Man Is bond-servant to much 
beside sin. Darkness, ignorance, 
blind traditionalism, dead apathy, 
race and personal prejudice, these 
are all fetters. 

These Jews illustrate that. 
They were Abraham's seed; that, 
they thought, answered everything. 
Conceit is a fetter. What a lying 
boast, '' we have never yet been in 
bondage to any man," when politic- 
ally, they were in bondage to an as- 
sortment of despots, working down 
from Cassar, through Herod and 
Pilate, to the meanest tax-gatherer. 
Religiously they were in bondage to 
a system of traditionalism and of 
wearisome outward observances — 
*' the yoke that neither we nor our 
fathers were able to bear." 

To Jesus, the world seemed peo- 
pled by slaves. No man was free. 
Caesar was only the empurpled 
slave of his ambitions, his fears and 



John viii. 
33. 



Acts XV. 
10. 



A world of 
slaves. 

Luke IV. 



34 



jSo 3i^om in tfje 3nn 



John 1. 9. 



2 Cor. iv. 
6. 



John xviii. 
38. 



his vices. Herod and Pilate were 
slaves, first to Caesar, and then, 
each, to a host of personal ambi- 
tions, fears and sins. And the pa- 
thetic and tragic fact to Him was, 
that so far from knowing their state 
they fancied themselves free. It is 
the pathos and tragedy of the race ! 
All men fancy themselves free and 
think only Christians are in bond- 
age. 



Christ is '* the Light of the 
world." Perhaps as He uttered 
those sublime words, all about Him 
the eight great lamps of the 
women's court were paling in the 
rosy coming of dawn. The wor- 
shippers were turning toward the 
East. But the true Light had risen 
already. The light of the knowl- 
edge of the true character of God 
was spreading more and more over 
the face of Jesus Christ. 

And it was just when every other 
light had failed. The primitive 



anb 0tf)tv SnterpretattoitjS 



3S 



civilization, in the Euphrates and 
the Nile valleys, had gone, leaving 
masses of monstrous and grotesque 
masonry covered with childishly 
bombastic inscriptions, which have 
not enriched the world by one noble 
thought, or clear idea. Greek civi- 
lization had perished in unfathom- 
able moral degradation. Roman 
civilization had but borrowed from 
Greece. Jewish civilization had be- 
come a mere bigotry. It was time 
for the Light to shine, time for the 
Breaker of fetters to come. He 
came to preach deliverance to the 
captive, and recovery of sight to 
the blind. 

'' I am the Light of the world " 
— Jesus took the lowest place, but 
He set His claim above all other 
claims. Not a light, but the Light. 
What does He mean by light? He 
tells us: He means truth. All sin, 
all prejudice, all narrowness, all 
blindness, all bigotry, hatred and 



Luke iv. 
i8. 



The real 

freedom. 

John viii. 



Matt. X. 37. 

John viii. 
40. 



z(> 



iOto l^oom in tJie 3nn 



self-will, all these, In the last analy- 
sis, are phases of a monstrous lie. 

Truth puts things into right rela- 
tions. God seems very great, in- 
conceivably good, inconceivably 
near, perfectly free, when Christ re- 
veals Him to the sons of men. God 
is perfectly free because He is only 
minded to do right — His will Is 
Himself. Affectionate harmony 
with that will is, therefore, perfect 
freedom. 

Now a test. An unknown man, 
apparently a Galilean carpenter, 
said In the temple one day '* I am 
the light of the world." Presently 
He was put to death. Nineteen 
hundred years, and more have 
passed. What account have they 
to give of the truth or falsity of 
that word? 

Just this ; in the world to-day the 
light of liberty for the spirit, soul 
and body of man is brightest where 
Christ is most known, best obeyed. 
And the darkest places in the world, 



anb 0t1)tv Mttxpxttation^ 



37 



and the heaviest shackles upon the 
mind, soul and body of man, are 
found where Christ is least known, 
least obeyed. 

And this is absolutely true of in- 
dividuals, as of nations. 



THE NEW BIRTH 

"Ye must be born again." John iii. 7. 

Tr\OES the value of a lost soul 
•^^ depend, in the estimate of Je- 
sus, upon its antecedents or sur- 
roundings, its past and present, 
what it has been or is? Is it, for 
example, better worth Christ's trou- 
ble to win good Nicodemus, a He- 
brew of the Hebrews, a sincere and 
candid man of great openness of 
mind, an earnest seeker after truth, 
than the bad Samaritan woman who 
came out to Jacob's well? 

The answer is that to Him both 
are equally lost, and both worth 
equal suffering to save. Both are 



The value 
of a soul. 

Matt. xvi. 
25. 



John iii. 
I, 2. 



John iv. 
17, i8. 



Rom. iii. 

23' 



38 



i^o 3Room in tfje 3nn 



The new 
birth. 



Gal. V. 21- 
23. 



John iii. 
3-7. 



alike and equally capable of be- 
coming children of God, by the new 
birth; both are equally good raw 
material out of which the Divine 
Potter can make saints, but as far 
as the record goes Jesus gets more 
profit of the bad Samaritan woman 
than of good Nicodemus. This 
puts no premium on antecedent bad- 
ness, for He has still greater profit 
of conscientious, religious Saul, 
whose training in the Scriptures, 
and in the law, made a magnificent 
foundation for grace. Only he 
must first become the new Paul. 

Here then the imperative falls, 
'' Ye must be born again," and the 
must, though imperative, is not ar- 
bitrary. It is inevitable in view of 
what human nature has become. 
The natural man cannot produce 
the spiritual character: love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
ance, so '' Ye must be born again." 



anb (letter Snterpretationsi 



39 



To the inevitable question 
'* How? " Our Lord returns a two- 
fold reply. The new birth is the 
work of the Spirit, fertilizing the 
seed of the word. Like the wind, 
the Spirit is invisible, mysterious, 
in the new creation; and this new 
birth becomes the instant posses- 
sion of ^' whosoever " believes on 
Christ, '^ lifted up," that is crucified. 

Not faith in Christ's character, 
or divinity, humanity, words or 
miracles — though these are ele- 
ments of true faith — but faith in 
Christ crucified; the personal trust 
in Him as having put away sin by 
the sacrifice of Himself — this 
brings the new birth. 

There is a sense in which, by 
creation, all men are the offspring 
of God. This was Paul's doctrine 
from Mars Hill and it is a truth, 
which distinguishes man from the 
animal creation, but upon it has 
been built a doctrine of the divine 



The Fath- 
erhood of 
God, 

Acts xvii. 
28. 






40 



jOto iloom in tfie 3nn 



Gen. i. 27, 
28. 



Eph. ii. I, 

Eph. iv. 18, 

Eph. ii. 8. 

Titus iii. 
3-6. 

2 Pet. i. 4. 

I Cor. xii. 
12, 13. 



Fatherhood which it Is sought to 
make identical with Christ's new 
doctrine of the Fatherhood 
through the new birth. 

This hopelessly confuses two 
things radically distinct, namely, the 
supreme position of men in the ma- 
terial universe as the '' offspring " 
of God by creation; and the new 
relationship of birth into the family 
of God through the Holy Spirit. 
Christ came that the ** offspring " 
of God might become, by a spirit- 
ual re-birth, children of God. The 
''offspring" are mere lost souls, 
" dead in trespasses and sins," 
*' alienated from the life of God by 
wicked works." The children of 
God are saved, recreated in Christ 
Jesus, made partakers of the divine 
nature, baptised into Christ. 



anb (Bt^tx SnterpretationsJ 



41 



JACOB'S WELL 

" The water which I shall ^ive." John iv. 14. 

TTERE Is a contrast between 
^ -^ the water at the bottom of 
Jacob's well, and the living water 
which Jesus gives, and these waters 
are, of course, symbols of spiritual 
verities. As for the '' living 
water," we may with the help of 
John viii. 38, 39, surely interpret 
that it stands for the indwelling 
Holy Spirit, '' But the water that 
I shall give him shall become in him 
a well (literally, fountain) of 
water springing up into eternal 
life." 

Jacob's well out of which the 
water must be drawn laboriously, 
and a little at a time, stands over 
against this upspringing fulness and 
vigor of life. What does it mean ? 
It means the law; it means legal 



Living 
water. 



John iv. 
14, R.V. 



Grace, not 
works. 



42 



j^o 3^oom in tfje inn 



Eph. iv. 30, 
31. 



I Thess. V. 
19. 



Gal. V. 22, 
23. 



righteousness. But that, you say, is 
a theological answer; what in the 
terms of modern religious life does 
Jacob's well mean? It means 
'*' building " character, painfully 
adding a brick of uprighteousness 
to a brick of prayerfulness, and so 
on. That so the heavenly char- 
acter comes, is the root error 
of modern ethics. It is going back 
to Jacob's well. Real Christian 
character is the overflow of the up- 
springing fountain. When we 
keep the inlet clear, ('' Grieve not 
the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye 
are sealed unto the day of redemp- 
tion, let all bitterness, and wrath, 
and anger, and clamor, and evil 
speaking be put away from you, 
with all malice ") and the outlet 
open, ('* Quench not the Spirit,") 
then ^' character " will result. For 
Christian character is the possession 
of nine graces, love, joy, peace, 
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, 
faith, meekness, temperance. And 



anb 0i^tt Snterpretationsf 



43 



these cannot be " built," they are a 
nine-fold " fruit." 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 

"Lazarus, come forth." John xi. 43. 

TF in His whole ministry Our 
^ Lord wrought a great miracle 
wath a definitely doctrinal purpose, 
it is safe to say that the raising of 
Lazarus was that miracle. Noth- 
ing less than this can be meant by, 
'' This sickness is not unto death, 
but for the glory of God, that the 
Son of God might be glorified 
thereby." 

A hundred questions, mostly 
foolish, curious, impertinent, clam- 
or to be asked, if we assume this 
meaning of that otherwise enig- 
matic verse. Does our Lord mean 
that the sickness and death of His 
friend was ordained to the end that 
the resurrection of the body, a vital 
truth of the new teaching, might be 



The evi- 
dence of 
miracle. 



John xi. 4. 



44 



ilo 3^om in tfje 3nn 



Mark ix. 
31, 32. 

Acts xvii. 
32. 



established by an instance conspicu- 
ous and open to investigation? 
Did He tarry two days still after 
hearing of Lazarus' sickness to test 
the faith of the sisters? 

These, and questions like these, 
sorely trouble minds of a certain or- 
der. Better not to ask them. But 
if you must ask them, here is your 
answer: We do not know. 

What we know is that Jesus 
loved Martha and Mary and Laza- 
rus better than you and I have ever 
loved anyone, and we know that, 
much as He talked about resurrec- 
tion — His own resurrection, and 
the resurrection of the just and of 
the unjust — ^it was the one truth in 
all His teaching which made least 
headway in the apprehension of 
His hearers. And we know that 
Christ's doctrine of the resurrec- 
tions to this very day has of all His 
doctrines fallen most upon the way- 
side and thorn-ground of the human 
heart. 



anb d^tfjer interpretations; 



45 



The orthodox confession to-day 
goes no whit beyond Martha's " I 
know that he shall rise again in the 
resurrection at the last day," the 
truth, of course, being that this doc- 
trine of the resurrection lay in Mar- 
tha's mind as probably it lies in 
your mind, a perfectly dead and 
sapless article of belief. 

Now, Jesus Christ has no ab- 
stract doctrines, no affirmations con- 
cerning which men may hold wrong 
notions, with no harm to them- 
selves. Every one of His teachings 
glows and throbs with life. Not a 
syllable of that body of teaching, 
concerning which He said, '' The 
words that I speak unto you, they 
are spirit and they are life; " and 
'' the word that I have spoken the 
same shall judge him in the last 
day," not a syllable of all those 
words but is meant for saints to 
live upon, and to be transformed 
by. 



John xi. 
24. 



Truth and 
life. 



John vi. 
63. 



John xii. 
48. 



46 



Mo i^om in tJie Im 



The resur- 
rections. 



Johnv. 25. 



John V. 28. 



John V. 29. 



See, then, as to this matter of 
resurrections, how the case of Laza- 
rus interprets and illustrates the 
teaching : 

I. Who had told Martha any- 
thing about '' the resurrection at the 
last day"? Not Christ. There is 
no such doctrine as the doctrine of 
'^ the resurrection," meaning one 
resurrection only, at one time. It 
is of a piece with that other unwar- 
rantable generalization, '' the gen- 
eral judgment." There are resur- 
rections, many; judgments, many. 
Christ taught of '' an hour " when 
dead souls should hear the word of 
God and live. That '' hour " is al- 
ready more than nineteen hundred 
years long. And Christ taught of 
another ^' hour " during which '^ all 
that are in the graves shall come 
forth." But not all simultaneously, 
for immediately He taught of two 
resurrections, one *' unto life " — 
one *' of damnation." Years after- 
ward, by the pen of the apostle 



anb 0tf)tx ^nterpretationsf 



47 



John, the Church was taught that 
one thousand years of time will 
divide these two resurrections; and 
by the pen of Paul that the first of 
these, the '* resurrection unto life,'' 
is ever impending. 

2. And Martha, truly a believer 
in ** the resurrection," but having 
no comfort of her belief because 
she thinks of it as an event of the 
distant future, '* at the last day," 
when, in very fact, the sun had not 
westered another hour before her 
brother came forth from the tomb 
in resurrection life. And this may 
be true of our dead, " for as in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
all be made alive. But every man 
in his own order: Christ the first- 
fruits; afterward they that are 
Christ's at his coming." '* For if 
we believe that Jesus died and rose 
again, even so them also which sleep 
in Jesus will God bring with him. 
. . . For the Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout, 



Rev. XX. 
i-i6. 



I Thess. iv. 
1S-18. 



I Cor. XV. 
22, 23. 



I Thess. iv. 
14-16. 



48 



j^o l^orn in tfje 3Knn 



Kingdom 
power. 

Matt. viii. 
Matt. ix. 

Mark ii-vi. 



. . . and the dead in Christ shall 
rise first: Then we which are alive 
and remain shall be caught up to- 
gether with them in the clouds, to 
meet the Lord in the air; and so 
shall we ever be with the Lord." 

3. And resurrection is verily a 
resurrection, the bringing to life 
again of a dead body, not a thing 
to be '' spiritualized " into some 
'* mode of immortality." And the 
resurrection, not of all the dead, but 
of all who sleep in Christ Jesus, the 
'* resurrection unto life " may be as 
near to our beloved dead as it was 
to Lazarus. 



THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS 

" The damsel is not dead but sleepeth." 

Mark v. 39. 

^T^HIS miracle is one of the 
'^ twelve mighty works follow- 
ing immediately after the Sermon 
on the Mount by which the King 



anb 0tf)tx interpretations; 



49 



demonstrated His power to deal 
with every consequence of sin, and 
to produce on the earth every as- 
pect of kingdom blessing foretold 
by the prophets. 

How many facets every gem of 
truth has! We see here the com- 
passion of Jesus, His tirelessness in 
service, His gentleness, His divine 
power. His recognition of human 
need, even in the case of one upon 
whom a miracle has been wrought, 
the contrast of fear and faith, and 
the first great interpretation of the 
mystery of death. *' The child is 
not dead [in your sense of that 
word, seeing only the grave,] but 
sleepeth." Put this scene and 
these words over against the 
Old Testament reticence, and if 
there were nothing more to the 
same purpose in the New Testa- 
ment, these alone interpret death 
and give the believer a sure 
hope. For sleep implies an 
awaking. 



Isa. xi. 
1-16. 

Jer. xxiii. 
5-8. 

Ezk. xxxvii. 
11-28. 

Zech. xiv. 
1-21. 

The loveli- 
ness of 
Christ, 

Mark v. 
30-34. 



Matt, xxvii. 
52. 

John xi. II. 

Acts xiii. 
36. 

I Cor. XV. 
20, SI. 

I Thess. iv. 
14. 



so 



i^ B^oom m tfie 3nn 



The uses oj 
miracle. 



John iii. 2. 



Rom. vi. 
14. 

Phil, iv. 
13. 

Rom. viii. 
14-18. 



Matt, v-vii. 



Acts ii. 
14-40. 



Matt. V. 
3-12. 



It IS strange how completely the 
greater evidential purpose of the 
miracles of Christ has been over- 
looked. Nicodemus argued rightly, 
when he said '' We know that thou 
art a teacher come from God; for 
no man can do these miracles that 
thou doest except God be with 
him." But the deeper spiritual pur- 
pose of His miracles was the dem- 
onstration of His power to repro- 
duce His lofty ethic in the terms of 
human character and conduct. A 
high ethic without impartation of 
enabling power, would be a gospel 
of despair, mocking the weakness 
of man. 

The two great sermons of Scrip- 
ture, Christ's Sermon on the 
Mount and Peter's Pentecost ser- 
mon, are the two parts of a perfect 
whole. The precept, so high that 
no man may attain unto it, is in the 
former ; the power which lifts man 
into it, is in the latter. 



anb 0t^tx Snterpretationai 



51 



In the case of the centurion's 
servant and the nobleman's son the 
will of Christ heals without His 
personal presence. The daughter 
of the Syrophenician woman is an- 
other like instance. It is note- 
worthy that both the Syrophenician 
and the centurion were Gentiles, 
and that in both instances our Lord 
commended their faith. 

The two contrasting principles 
of law and grace are finely illustrat- 
ed in the two phrases '' He was 
worthy for whom he should do 
this " and '' Neither thought I my- 
self worthy to come unto thee." 

It is inveterately characteristic of 
the legal, self-righteous way of 
looking at religion that it cannot 
imagine God doing kindnesses ex- 
cept to those who have, by good- 
ness, established a kind of claim 
upon Him. The inner unspoken 
thought is, God ought to be good 
to the good. And it is just as char- 



Matt, viii. 

5. 

John iv. 
46. 

Mark vii. 
24-30. 



Law and 
grace. 

Luke vii. 4. 
Luke vii. 7. 



52 



Mo i^om in ttje 3nn 



The one 
barrier, 

John ix. 
39-41. 



acteristic of the faith-way of look- 
ing at religion to find in God Him- 
self a reason for expecting gracious 
kindnesses from Him, Legality 
looks at self and says, *' I am 
good"; faith looks at God, and 
says, *' He is good/' 

The elders of the Jews stood 
upon the worthiness of the centu- 
rion. The centurion stood upon 
the power of Christ, and set him- 
self utterly aside. 

The barrier between Christ and 
a human heart is never human sin- 
fulness, but human self-sufficiency. 
It was this which made the Jewish 
heart harder than the nether mill- 
stone, as it was the consciousness of 
sinfulness and need which, at the 
first, made the Gentile heart acces- 
sible to Christ. 



anb 0t^tt Inttxpxttatm^ 



S3 



PARABLE OF THE TEN 
VIRGINS 

" And five of them were wise and dve 
foolish.'^ Matt. xxv. 2. 

'1X7HAT now are the truths In 
^ ^ relation to the ever-possible 
return of Christ, which He meant 
to teach through the parable of the 
ten virgins? This, most evidently, 
that the second coming of Christ 
will be a testing of the profession of 
discipleship. 

Here are ten who certainly are 
alike in three respects — all make 
profession of spiritual chastity, all 
profess to be light-bearers, all fall 
asleep while the bridegroom tar- 
ries. 

So far as men can see the ten are 
all alike. But there is a secret dif- 
ference. '* Five have oil in their 
vessels with their lamps;" five 
*' took no oil.'' Oil is everywhere a 
symbol of the Holy Spirit, and the 



The final 
test. 



Matt. xxv. 
I, 5. 



Matt. 
3. 4. 



54 



jSo l^oom in tfjc Snn 



Rom. viii. 
9. 



Matt. XXV. 



possession or non-possession of the 
Spirit is the essential distinction be- 
tween a moral professor and a true 
Christian. '^ Now if any man have 
not the Spirit of Christ he is none 
of his." But outwardly a sleeping 
professor and a sleeping possessor 
are much alike. 

Then comes the awakening cry, 
and the essential difference between 
the outwardly religious and the re- 
newed is manifested. The whole 
scene is a testing of religious pro- 
fession. 

It will not do, in view of ** But 
he answered and said. Verily I say 
unto you, I know you not," to say 
that the foolish virigns are really 
Christians but unwatchful, unready. 
Jesus could never say to any weak- 
est, most fallible believer, " I know 
you not." 

These foolish virgins illustrate 
Hebrews vi. 4-8. There is a ten- 
tative and illuminating work of the 



anb 0tUt interpretations; 



55 



Spirit which does not go the length 
of regeneration, and the indwelling. 
The man in Hebrews '* tastes " but 
does not whole-heartedly accept 
Christ. It is a solemn warning of 
the danger of mere profession, of 
the danger of being self-deceived 
through morality and church mem- 
bership, with no real trust in Jesus 
Christ crucified, and so with no new 
birth, no indwelling Spirit. 

Ten had on the virgin's robe, 
ten had the lamp of the light-bearer, 
ten fell asleep, ten were awakened, 
but only five had the '' oil of glad- 
ness." And, ** if any man have not 
the Spirit of Christ he is none of 
his." " I know you not." 

As the parable of the virgins will 
be a testing of the profession of 
discipleship, so the parable of 
the talents is a testing of servant- 
ship. 

" Watch therefore, for ye know 
neither the day nor the hour where- 



Matt, vii. 

22. 



Rom. viii, 
9. 



Matt. XXV. 
12. 



The true 

servant. 

Matt. XXV. 
14-30. 



Matt. XXV. 
13. 



56 



iSo Eoom in tfje 5nn 



Matt. XXV. 
14. 



John xvi. 
IS. 



I Thess. ii. 
4. 



Rom. i. 14, 
15. 



in the Son of man cometh." 
" Watch '' because the Bridegroom 
may come at any moment, and then 
believers go into the feast — profes- 
sors are excluded, the door is shut 
against them, and a voice from 
within says '' I know you not." And 
'' watch,'' because when Christ took 
His journey unto a far country He 
gave precious goods to His serv- 
ants, and He will require an ac- 
counting at His return. 

What is meant by these 
'' goods " ? Observe they are '' His 
goods." The Epistles, always the 
necessary complement of the Gos- 
pels, explain this. 

The goods are first the Gospel. 
'^ But as we were allowed of God 
to be put in trust with the Gospel, 
even so we speak." 

Paul, in receiving the glad tid- 
ings, had been made a trustee of the 
Gospel in behalf of the whole 
world. He was/' debtor " and his 



anb 0tf)tv 3nterpretation2{ 



57 



whole ministry was a joyous but un- 
ceasing effort to pay his debt, for, 
'' it is required in stewards that a 
man be found faithful/' 

Secondly, the '^ goods " are the 
whole deposit of revealed truth, 
*' once for all committed unto the 
saints." It was Paul's glory in his 
dying hour not only that he had 
fought a good fight, but that he had 
fought a victorious fight; he had by 
his courage in standing against 
legalism, agnosticism, and all her- 
esy, '' kept the faith.'' 

Thirdly, the *' goods " are gifts 
of the Spirit. These are various. 
*' Now there are diversities of gifts, 
but the same Spirit; " given to all: 
^' But the manifestation of the 
Spirit is given to every man to 
profit withal," and sovereignly be- 
stowed: the selfsame Spirit, '* divid- 
ing to every man severally ?,s he 
will." 



I Cor. iv. 

I, 2. 



Jude 3, 
R.V. 



2 Tim. iv. 
7. 



I Cor. xii. 
4- 

I Cor. xii. 
7- 

I Cor. xii. 
II. 



58 



Mo 3^om in tint Mn 



And so, just as there were two 
kinds of virgins, real and sham, so 
there are two kinds of servants. 
The five talent man and the two 
talent man differ in the amount of 
the trust estate committed to them, 
but they are the same kind of men. 
*' And likewise he that had received 
two." Both were faithful, and 
both got precisely the same reward. 
But in the one talent man we have 
a sham servant, not a real one. 



Matt, XXV. 
17. 



Gal. i. 6-9. 



And at this point it is necessary 
to note that wherever the Gospel is 
preached it divides men into three 
classes — Christians, professors, re- 
jecters. The professor is, of 
course, a rejecter at heart, but he 
is like the son in the parable, who 
said *' I go, sir; and went not." 
This unsaved servant had no gifts 
of the Spirit. His one talent was 
that he knew the Gospel, and pro- 
fessed to be a herald of it. He 
may have preached eloquent ser- 



anti (Bti)tx Snterpretationsi 



S9 



mons, but he " hid " the old gospel 
of atoning blood. 



THE ANOINTING AT 
BETHANY 

" Then took Mary a pound of ointment of 
spikenard, very costly, and anointed the ieet 
of Jesus." John xii. 3. 

\X7E shall never really grasp the 
^ ^ significance of Mary's act un- 
less we go back to the beginning of 
Mary's discipleship, and then come 
down with the story to this, its end. 
Have you ever noticed that you 
never see Mary apart from her sis- 
ter Martha ? Three times these sis- 
ters come before us in the Gospel 
story. This means that something 
is to be taught by contrast. 

It is the vivid Bible way. '^ Two 
men went up to the temple to pray." 
Not two theories, nor two diverse 
principles, nor two types of doc- 
trine, but two men. And how, by 
contrast, they bring each other into 



Luke X. 
38.42. 



Teaching 
by contrast, 

Luke xviii. 
10. 



6o 



j^o 3i^om in tfie Knn 



Luke xvi. 
19. 



Mary com- 
mended, 

Luke X. 38, 
39. 

Luke X. 40, 
41. 

Luke X. 39. 



relief! Jesus might have lectured 
that day on '' the two basal theories 
of religion," and we should have 
forgotten or misunderstood Him. 
But we shall not misunderstand 
Him now. Forever for us those 
two men stand in the temple; the 
one unctuously thanking God that 
he is not as other men are ; the other 
smiting upon his guilty heart, and 
crying for mercy — and we do not 
forget. 

And again, ^* There was a certain 
rich man, which was clothed in pur- 
ple and fine linen, and fared sump- 
tuously every day: and there was 
a certain beggar named Lazarus.'^ 
Yes; and by means of Lazarus I 
shall find out the truth about Dives. 

Now here are two sisters. Begin 
with the first mention of them; 
Martha was '' cumbered," *' care- 
ful " and '' troubled "; '' Mary sat 
at Jesus' feet, and heard his word." 
And some preacher will tell you 



anti (Jitter Snterpretationsj 



6i 



that we have here two desirable 
types of Christian character, prac- 
tical Martha and meditative Mary, 
and that the church needs both 
types. But Jesus, when He was 
presently appealed to, did not say 
that. 

And another preacher will tell 
you that here are two different tem- 
peraments, that Martha and Mary 
were ** made that way," and could 
be, and do, no otherwise. But Je- 
sus did not say that, either; Jesus 
did say that *^ But one thing is need- 
ful, and Mary hath chosen that 
good part which shall not be taken 
away from her." Mary chose to 
put acquaintanceship with Jesus and 
His word first in her Christian life; 
Martha chose to fussily serve Him 
first. Service has the third, not the 
first, place in the divine order: To 
know, in order to be, in order to 
do. 

The next time these sisters come 



Luke X. 42. 
Col. i. 9. 



62 



j^o ii^oom m tfje 3nn 



Mary the 
soul-win- 
ner. 

John XI. 

45. 



before us, we discover that Mary, 
because she began right, did more 
for Jesus than Martha, for '' Then 
many of the Jews which came to 
Mary, and had seen the things 
which Jesus did, believed on 
him." 

Each of these sisters had, natu- 
rally, her own circle of friends, who, 
when the news of Lazarus' death 
went abroad, gathered to comfort 
them. Then came Jesus, and the 
resurrection of Lazarus, and then it 
became manifest that something in 
the bearing and testimony of Mary 
under her affliction, had impressed 
her circle of sympathizers, and 
when the mighty work was 
wrought, " many . . . which 
came to Mary . . . believed on 
him." And so it was '' dreamy, 
unpractical Mary," as many people 
call her, who was the real servant, 
the soul-winner. 

And now we can enter into the 



anti 0t\)tt interpretations^ 



63 



beautiful and touching scene of the 
anointing at Bethany. 

What was the heart of Mary's 
thought? To show that she loved 
Jesus, that nothing short of the of- 
fering of her costliest, most cher- 
ished possession could satisfy her 
heart? Yes, doubtless that too was 
in her lovely act, and may suffice to 
rebuke us, who give our least 
valued things to Him; but not this 
fathoms the depth of Mary's 
thought. 

Was it her silent way of saying 
that, since Israel had not anointed 
Him King, one Jewish maiden 
would do her poor best to repair 
that insolent omission? No, her 
thoughts, we may be sure, were not 
greatly upon His titles just then. 
Was it, as some will have it, just 
a touching effort to show her grati- 
tude for the resurrection of her 
brother Lazarus? Again no. 

Happily we cannot miss the 
heart of the interpretation here, 



Mary th$ 
consoler. 

John xii. 
1-9. 

Mark xiv. 
3-9. 

Matt xxvi. 
6-13. 



64 



i^o 3l^om in tfje Mn 



John xii. 7. 



Mark xiv. 
8. 



Phil. iii. 
10. 



for Jesus Himself betrayed her se- 
cret, '* Against the day of my bury- 
ing hath she kept this/' or as Mark 
renders it '' She is come beforehand 
to anoint my body to the burying." 
In other words, Mary alone, of the 
entire circle of disciples, had really 
comprehended the truth of His 
thrice announced death and resur- 
rection. 

Mary alone knew that it would 
be a futile thing to go " very early 
on the first day morning," with 
costly ointments to pour upon a 
body which would already be risen. 
Mary alone, therefore, who began 
by learning at Jesus' feet, could at 
the last enter into '' the fellowship 
of his sufferings." And of Mary 
Christ spoke the highest words of 
approval in the Bible, '' She hath 
done what she could." 

It was her silent way of saying, 
'' I have understood that thou 
shalt suffer many things of the el- 
ders, and chief priests, and scribes, 



anb 0ti^tt interpretations; 



65 



and be killed, and be raised again 
the third day." 

And so Mary was not only more 
for Christ in the conversion of her 
friends, but she was more to Christ 
the fellowship of silent sym- 



in 



pathy, than any of His disciples, — 
and all this because she began right. 



JESUS BEFORE PILATE 

" And Pilate gave sentence that it should 
be as they required." Luke xxiii. 24. 

nr^HE story of Pilate is both piti- 
-*• ful and shameful, ending in 
the most atrocious crime ever com- 
mitted by man. It explains nothing 
to say that Pilate, like most Ro- 
mans of the period, thought little 
of human suffering, and therefore 
did not weigh the agonies to be in- 
flicted on Jesus, against the incon- 
venience of displeasing the Jews. 
He did not send Jesus to the cross 
lightly. The whole nature of the 



Whyr 
Matt.xxvii. 

Mark xv. 
1-15. 

Luke xxiii. 
1-25. 

John xviii. 
28-xix. 19. 



66 



iSo 3l^oom m tfje 3nn 



Matt, 
xxvii. 19. 

John xix. 
8, 12. 

Luke xiii. 



Pilate, 



man was stirred to its depths. He 
was profoundly agitated, unnerved, 
unmanned. 

The Jews, who had more than 
once felt his strength, who remem- 
bered how ruthlessly he had min- 
gled the blood of the Galileans 
with their sacrifices in the very tem- 
ple itself, must have wondered at 
his unwonted infirmity of will that 
day, as all the world has wondered 
ever since. 

Let us study Pilate's character: 
It Is worth while surely to discover, 
if we can, what fatal defect made 
such conduct possible, what lack in 
him left him destitute of principle 
In the moment of his supreme test- 
ing. He was, remember, no com- 
mon man. Rome had made him 
governor of one of her most turbu- 
lent and ungovernable provinces, 
and Rome did not put weak men In 
such places. The remarkable ques- 
tions which he asked that day, show 



antr 0^tv Snterpretationg 



67 



him to have been a man of alert and 
vigorous mind. What, then, was 
the secret of his weakness, and so 
of his infamy? 

I think he laid bare that secret 
when he asked his famous question, 
*'What is truth?" What did he 
mean? For asking Jesus that ques- 
tion he has been called ^' jesting 
Pilate." I do not think Pontius 
Pilate was In a jesting mood that 
day, rather, in that question, half 
sadly, half contemptuously asked, 
the profound moral hopelessness 
of the Pagan world found a 
voice. 

The great philosophers had come 
and gone before Christ was born, 
and they had not found ultimate 
truth. Their best systems not only 
contradicted each other at every 
vital point, but failed to touch the 
real problem of human life — des- 
tiny. Epicureans and Stoics re- 
mained, but men of action like 
Pilate turned wearily from their 



The pagan 
hopeless- 
ness. 

John xviii. 
38. 



I Cor. iL 
8, 9. 



68 



i^o 3i^oom in tte 3nn 



disputes about words, knowing that 
they had no power over conduct, 
character or destiny. 

Look abroad over the world-em- 
pire of Rome that day and ask if 
there was any other place where it 
would have fared better with Jesus. 
Absolutely nowhere. Pilate was as 
good a representative of Gentilism 
as Annas and Caiaphas of Judaism. 
The world was morally dead and 
rotting. Humanity had had its 
long probation from Noah to Je- 
sus, and had come to Annas, the 
Jew, and Pilate, the Gentile, and 
between them they crucified the 
Lord of Glory. 



Pilate a 
type. 



Pilate was a type of what, In 
these days, we call a man of the 
world. He and his kind, the real 
actors in the real drama of life, had 
come to believe that the pursuit of 
truth was vain; that no truly au- 
thoritative voice had ever spoken. 
And when that conviction enters a 



aitiJ (0tf)er interpretations 



69 



human soul, the substance of char- 
acter is gone, the man is henceforth 
a mere opportunist. If greatly 
tempted he will greatly fall; before 
God he is already fallen. How 
lightly men in our day deny the 
whole principle of authority in re- 
ligion, so throwing every soul of 
man adrift without chart or com- 
pass, without point of departure or 
destination. Nay, it is deviPs work 
to take away the authority of Christ 
and of the Bible, and will have its 
issue in fatal enervation of charac- 
ter, — in a race of Pilates. 



THE ATONEMENT 



*' Christ died for our sins according to 
the Scriptures." 1 CoR. xv. 3. 

nr^HE Bible is a wonderful treas- 
•*" ury of truth, containing his- 
tory, biography, poetry, prophecy 
and ethics; it covers all time, and 
looks over into eternity; it deals 



The central 
truth. 



70 



Mo 3^oom in tfie 3nn 



with every part of the duty of man 
in relation to God, and in relation 
to his fellowmen; it reveals every- 
thing concerning human opportu- 
nity in relation to eternity. It is a 
book with an infinite fullness of 
truth, meeting every legitimate 
question of the soul, and answering 
all human need; and yet it has one 
truth that is central to all other 
truths, one truth which is the heart 
of it all, which is the one great em- 
phatic and first thing in it all, and 
that is, '' Christ died." 

That Christ's death had a rela- 
tion to sin, all admit. There is 
no question about that anywhere 
among Christians, but what that re- 
lation was has been the subject of 
endless theorizings and philoso- 
phizings. There is probably some 
element of truth in most of these 
theories; but the fact that *' Christ 
died for our sins " not according to 
this or that theory, but *' according 
to the scriptures," sends us to the 



' Accord- 
ing to the 
Scrip- 
tures/* 



I Cor. XV. 
3. 



anb dottier Snterpretationsf 



71 



Scriptures for an interpretation of 
the cross. 

From Genesis to Malachi there is 
an incessant reference to death for 
sin. In a certain sense it is the topic 
of the Old Testament, the scarlet 
thread that runs through all Scrip- 
ture. 

It is made perfectly clear that 
there is no possibility of remission 
for sin apart from sacrifice. No 
amendment of life; no change of at- 
titude toward God; no sorrow for 
sin, no repentance, no faith, no 
works; nothing can possibly avail 
for sin, according to the universal 
testimony of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, but death. The New 
Testament again and again refers 
back to it, and always emphasizes 
that point. 

It is stated in the ninth chapter 
of Hebrews, the sacrificial chapter, 
that ** without shedding of blood 
there is no remission"; and the 
New Testament everywhere adopts 



Gen. iv. 
3-5. 

Ex. xii. 12, 
13. 

Lev. iv. 
27-35. 

Isa. liii. 
1-12. 



Heb. ix. 22. 



72 



Mo i^oom in tfie Mn 



Old Testament language and uses 
I Cor. V. 7. Old Testament incidents; ''Christ 
our passover is sacrificed for us " ; 
'' This is my blood of the new 
testament, which is shed for many 
for the remission of sins." Sacri- 
fice for sin, in both Testaments, pre- 
cedes forgiveness. 



Matt. xxvi. 
27, 28. 



Vicarious, 
Lev. i. 4. 

2 Cor. V. 



Isa. liii. 
4-6. 

I Pet ii. 
24. 



2. Death for sin, in both Testa- 
ments, is always vicarious. '* It 
shall be accepted for him," is the 
formula; the offering takes the 
place of the offerer, and is invaria- 
bly associated with the idea of sub- 
stitution. '* All we like sheep have 
gone astray . . . and the Lord hath 
laid on him the iniquity of us all." 



Efficacious, 

Ex. xii. 13. 

John xii, 
32, 33. 

Rom. V. 9, 
10. 

2 Cor. V. 
21. 

Eph. ii. 13. 



3. Death for sin is perfectly effi- 
cacious, the offering is accepted for 
the offerer; his sin is forgiven him, 
and he is not required to do some- 
thing in addition to that. God re- 
quires sacrifice for sin, but requires, 
as the condition of forgiveness. 



anb 0tfitv SnterpretationsJ 



73 



nothing more than sacrifice. We 
are not saved by Christ's death and 
something else, but by His death, 
and by that alone. 

Our faith even adds nothing to 
that sacrifice, nor does it add any- 
thing to our own merit, any more 
than it is meritorious for a beggar 
to take the loaf of bread which you 
give him. He takes it because he 
needs it, and knows his need. He 
may love you for giving it to him, 
but that does not make the bread 
any more nutritious; out of grati- 
tude he may joyfully serve you, but 
that does not affect the quality of 
the bread. It is the bread which 
satisfies his hunger. 

Just as the sprinkled blood on 
the door posts, and that alone, se- 
cured the children of Israel from 
death, so the cross of Christ, and 
the cross alone, is our perfect se- 
curity from judgment. It is neces- 
sary, — nothing but death will avail. 
It is vicarious or substitutional — a 



Heb. ix. 

II, 12, 26. 

Heb. X. 

10-17. 

I John i. 7. 
Rev. i. 5. 



74 



Mo i^oom in tfje Mn 



life for a life. It is perfectly effi- 

Actsiv. 12. cacious — ^* For there is none other 

name under heaven given among 

men, whereby we must be saved." 



Mysteri- 
ous, 



Rom. iii. 
26, 27, 



His death saves us. Beyond the 
plain teaching of Scripture we may 
not take one sure step. There are 
depths in the atonement which we 
may not fathom, depths which have 
not been revealed. The problem 
was God's problem; how could He 
be just and save a sinner? The 
atonement is God's solution of the 
problem; and while the facts are 
set before us with great plainness, 
surely all its mystery, all that lay in 
the Divine mind concerning it, is 
not revealed. 



The deso- 
late cry. 

Matt, xxvii. 
46. 



The mystery itself is put once for 
all in our Lord's desolate cry, '' My 
God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me? " That the sinless One 
was forsaken the cry itself proves, 
but why was He forsaken? All 



anb (letter Snterpretationss 



75 



theories of the atonement must 
start from that utterance, and must 
hold an adequate answer. If Jesus 
died as a spectacle, as a touching 
and supreme object lesson in altru- 
ism, as the law of life, and if there 
was no other meaning in His death, 
then His forsaking can mean noth- 
ing but the Divine condemnation of 
His act. 

Then, if ever, the heavens should 
have opened over the cross, and the 
approving voice of God have re- 
sounded. But the blackness of mid- 
night shrouded the unresponsive 
heavens. That explanation of the 
death of Christ is inadequate, un- 
satisfactory. It may be part of the 
truth, but obviously can not be all 
of the truth. 

Without, then, trying to compass 
Godward and manward all the 
meanings of the cross of Christ, is 
it possible, upon the sure ground of 
Scripture, to say what, at least, is 
the central truth? I believe it is. 



Tht ctniral 
truth. 



76 



i^ S^om in tfie 3nn 



Luke xxiii. 
39-43. 



Rom. iii. 
19. 



2 Cor. V, 



Heb. ix. 26. 



I Pet ii. 
24. 

Isa. liii. 6. 



Christ did something that dread- 
ful, blessed day, which made it pos- 
sible for Him to say to a dying 
thief, '' To day shalt thou be with 
me in Paradise.'' Surely it was 
all done for this dying man. His 
own hands and feet were nailed to 
a cross; he could neither run nor 
work for God. The law con- 
demned him because of his wicked 
life. He could not make restitu- 
tion to those whom he had robbed, 
he could do nothing but cry, 
** Lord, remember me!" 

What was that thing which Je- 
sus did? The Scriptures answer, 
" He hath made him to be sin for 
us, who knew no sin, that we might 
be made the righteousness of God 
in him." '' Now once in the end 
of the world hath he appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of 
himself." He bore our sins in 



his own body on the tree. 



All 



we like sheep have gone astray ; we 



anb d^tfjer interpretations; 



77 



have turned every one to his own 
way; and the Lord hath laid on 
him the iniquity of us all." 

There is God's view of the cross, 
looking down. His problem in hu- 
man salvation differed widely from 
the same problem, as we must solve 
it. How to be just, and yet a justi- 
fier of guilty sinners, was part of 
God's problem. That solved, there 
remained the problem of reconcilia- 
tion. How shall guilty man be 
won to repentance and faith? 

Now when God looked down 
upon the cross, He saw in it the 
solution of both problems. His 
holiness in judging the unbelieving 
was so vindicated that without low- 
ering the sanction of His law He 
could pardon the believing. And 
there was also in the cross so great 
manifestation of His love that any 
heart, not fixed eternally in the love 
of sin, must be won by it. 

Then there is man's view of the 



Reconcilia- 
tion, 



Rom. iii. 
24-26. 



Rom. iii, 
31. 

John iii. 
16. 

I. John iv, 

9, ID. 

I John iv. 
19. 



78 



j^o l^oom in tfje 3nn 



John iii. 
14, 15- .. 
Matt, xxvii. 
46. 

Matt. xxvi. 
56. 

Heb.ix. 26.. 



Isa. liii. zi 



Cleansing. 



John xiii. 
14. 



cross, looking up. And If he looks 
aright, with true faith, he sees first 
of all a holy Being suffering, for- 
saken by God and man. He sees, 
in Him, full atonement for his sins, 
sees them judged, and forever put 
away by the sacrifice of Christ. He 
is satisfied, the law is satisfied, 
God is satisfied, Christ, seeing the 
travail of His soul, is satisfied, and 
the believing sinner is reconciled 
to God, through the death of His 
Son. 



THE LAVER OF CLEANSING 

"He . . . began to wash the disciples' 
feet." John xiii. 5. 

TT has often been suggested that 
this act of Jesus was performed 
to teach humility. That lesson is 
truly here, for He Himself said, 
'' If I, then, your Lord and Master, 
have washed your feet; ye also 
ought to wash one another's feet," 



anti (0tf)er interpretations^ 



79 



but It IS incidental and by the way. 
No Oriental thought it a menial act 
to wash a guest's feet. Peter's as- 
tonishment, and refusal, were be- 
cause the Divine Master took this 
act upon Himself. '' Dost thou 
wash my feet? " 

It was an act of condescension 
for the Lord of Glory to perform 
this office; and doubtless therefore 
there is a blessed teaching of humil- 
ity in our Lord's act, but that is 
not the central truth; the deepest 
meaning hes in the words '' If I 
wash thee not thou hast no part 
with me." 

After eating the Pascal supper, 
and before the institution of the 
memorial supper, which is one of 
the two Christian ordinances, Je- 
sus rose from the table, and gird- 
ing Himself began to wash the dis- 
ciples' feet. 

They received this with the usual 
stolidity until Peter was reached 
and protested '' Dost thou wash 



John xiii. 
6. 



John xiii. 
4, 5- 



8o 



Mo 3^oom in tije 3nn 



John xiii, 
7. 



John xiii. 



John xiii. 
9. 



John xiii. 

10. 



my feet? " To this Jesus made an- 
swer '' What I do thou knowest not 
now; but thou shalt know here- 
after." Our Lord's act was, then, 
symbolical. But this did not satisfy 
Peter: '' Thou shalt never wash my 
feet " was his resolute reply. So 
Jesus disclosed the symbolical 
meaning of His act, *' If I wash 
thee not thou hast no part with 
me. 

And now Peter, understanding 
the act to be symbolic of purifica- 
tion from sin, goes quite too 
far, ^' Lord, not my feet only, but 
also my hands and my head." It is 
as if he said *' Lord, if it is a ques- 
tion of cleansing I am all unclean." 
So again our Lord defines His act. 
'' Jesus saith unto him, He that is 
w^ashed needeth not save to wash 
his feet." The underlying imagery 
is Oriental — of one who, in the 
public baths, has become clean, but 
whose feet, as he walks homeward 
through the filth of an Oriental city, 



anb d^tfjer interpretations 



8i 



contract new defilements, and these 
must be washed away. And the 
application is obvious. The believ- 
er, cleansed by the blood of Christ 
from all guilt and penalty, needs 
also daily cleansing as he walks 
through an unclean world. 

And there is here, also, a refer- 
ence to the laver of the temple, 
which every Jew should have un- 
derstood. 

The priest, having offered sacri- 
fice at the brazen altar, and pro- 
ceeding thence to worship and com- 
munion in the holy place, must 
pause at the laver for the cleansing 
of hands and feet. Typically the 
sacrifice unto salvation had been of- 
fered at the brazen altar. Forgive- 
ness and cleansing had been found 
there. But sin is not only guilt, it 
is defilement, and fellowship with 
God demands that this be removed. 
The cleansing work of Christ is 
two-fold; the cleansing by blood 



The laver, 

Ex. XXX. 

17-21. 



The double 
cleansing. 



82 



i^ i^oom in tfje 3nn 



Eph. V. 
25-27. 



Confession 
and cleans- 
ing, 

I John i. 
7-9. 



unto full salvation, the cleansing by 
the Spirit through the word unto 
full fellowship, 

*' Christ also loved the church, 
and gave himself for it; that he 
might sanctify and cleanse it with 
the washing of water by the word, 
That he might present it to himself 
a glorious church, not having spot, 
or wrinkle, or any such thing; but 
that it should be holy and without 
blemish." 

*' If we walk in the light, as he 
is in the light, we have fellowship 
one with another, and the blood of 
Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us 
from all sin. If we say that we have 
no sin we deceive ourselves, and the 
truth is not in us. If we confess 
our sins, he is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness." 

In these passages the whole beau- 
tiful, but solemn truth of the feet- 
washing is opened, and this is that 



anb 0t\^tx Snterpretationg 



83 



truth: The Lord was about to in- 
stitute the Eucharistic Supper, a 
supreme expression of communion 
and fellowship, and He would 
teach His loving, but careless dis- 
ciples, the two-fold lesson — first, 
that His blood answered once for 
all, for the guilt of the believer. 
** He that is bathed needeth not 
save to wash his feet." Secondly, 
He, the Holy One, could not ad- 
mit to the privileges of His inti- 
macy the believer who lived care- 
lessly in unconfessed sin, and, that 
only He, Christ, could cleanse the 
defiled believer. Our part is con- 
fession, His part is to cleanse us 
from unrighteousness, and so to re- 
store our interrupted fellowship. 
The saint's confession is but put- 
ting the defiled feet into the hands 
of Jesus; He only can cleanse. 



Liike xxii. 
19, 20. 



84 



i^o 3l^oom in tfje 3nn 



Three vital 
truths* 



Luke xix. 

10. 

Heb. X. 
S-io. 

John xii. 
24, 32, 33. 

John iii. 
14. 

Heb. ix. 

22, 



Matt. xii. 
38-40. 

Rom. iv. 
23-25. 



THE RESURRECTION 

"He is not here: for he is risen, as he 
said." Matt, xxviii. 6. 

"^TEXT to the crucifixion of Je- 
-*"^ sus Christ, His resurrection 
is the most important event in hu- 
man history. Indeed it may be 
said that three facts concerning Je- 
sus Christ are so intimately related 
as to be of equal importance — His 
incarnation, His crucifixion and His 
resurrection. 

Without the incarnation neither 
the crucifixion nor the resurrection 
would have been possible; without 
the crucifixion the incarnation 
would have been of no avail for the 
salvation of a guilty world; with- 
out the resurrection the fact of the 
incarnation, and the eflicacy of 
the crucifixion would have lacked 
the attestation to which Jesus 
Himself appealed as the final 
" sign." 



anb 0ti)tt 3fnterpretation£( 



85 



That Jesus rose from the dead 
has been called the best attested 
fact in human history. It rests up- 
on the following concurrent testi- 
mony: 

First, the personal witnesses of 
the resurrection were numerous, 
they saw Him repeatedly, knew 
Him intimately, knew His stature, 
features, the tones of His voice. 
They were the holiest men the 
world ever saw, incapable of false- 
hood. They were incredulous, hard 
to be convinced. They bore wit- 
ness to the fact immediately, when 
their testimony, if false, could have 
been refuted. Every true Chris- 
tian is a personal witness that Jesus 
is alive. 

The resurrection of Jesus proves 
His deity, " Declared to be the Son 
of God with power, according to 
the Spirit of holiness, by the resur- 
rection from the dead: " 

Completes our justification, 



The fact- 
Jesus rose. 



1 Cor. XV. 
5-8. 

John XX. 
14-29. 

Matt, 
xxviii. 16, 
17. 

Mark xvi. 
9-11. 

Luke xxiv. 



John XX. 
24-28. 



Rom. i. 4. 



Rom. iv. 
25. 



iSo 3^om in tfje Snn 



I Thess. 
iv. 14. 



Eph. 1. 22, 



Heb. xiii. 



Heb. vii. 
25. 



" Who was delivered for our of- 
fences, and was raised again for 
our justification; " 

Makes the believer's own resur- 
rection sure, *' For if we believe 
that Jesus died and rose again, even 
so them also which sleep in Jesus 
will God bring with him; " 

Gives to the Church a living 
head, '' And gave him to be the 
head over all things to the 
Church;" 

Restores to the sheep of God 
their great Shepherd, '' Now the 
God of peace, that brought again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that 
great shepherd of the sheep, 
through the blood of the everlast- 
ing covenant, make you perfect in 
every good work to do his will; " 

Establishes His High Priestly 
office, ** Wherefore he is able to 
save them to the uttermost that 
come unto God by him, seeing he 
ever liveth to make intercession for 
them." 



anil (J^tfjer 3nterpretation£{ 



87 



Gives the sinning believer an Ad- 
vocate, ** If any man sin, we have 
an advocate with the Father." 

Gives the Church a blessed hope, 
" Looking for that blessed hope." 

And the earth a coming King, 
** And the Lord God shall give un- 
to him the throne of his father 
David, and he shall reign over the 
house of Jacob forever; and of his 
kingdom there shall be no end." 

Surely it is well that the tre- 
mendous fact of the resurrection of 
Christ should be restored, in our 
faith and motive, to its biblical 
prominence. No one can read the 
Acts and the Epistles without see- 
ing that the resurrection was, next 
to the cross, the central theme of 
the Apostolic preaching. 

To-day both the incarnation and 
the resurrection are denied by men 
who claim that such denial is pos- 
sible within evangelical lines; but 



I John ii. 



Titus ii. 13. 

Luke i. 
30-33. 



Acts XV. 
14-16. 



Preach the 
resurrec- 
tion. 



Modern 
denial. 



88 



i^ i^om in tfie Hlfnn 



I Cor. XV. 



Tim. i. 

20. 

2 Tim. ii. 
17, i8. 



I Pet i. 3. 



the Scriptures say that if Jesus did 
not rise there is no resurrection, our 
faith is vain, we are yet in our sins, 
and they who sleep in Jesus are 
perished. 

No wonder that around this truth 
the Apostles, by the Spirit, threw 
the sternest sanctions, as in the case 
of Hymenaeus who, erring at this 
vital point, was delivered unto Sa- 
tan that he might learn not to 
blaspheme. 

Perhaps Peter best expresses the 
effect of the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead, when he says, 
*' Blessed be the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, which ac- 
cording to his abundant mercy hath 
begotten us again into a lively 
hope by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ." 

That it was the re-birth of Chris- 
tianity is, of course, patent to the 
reader of the Gospels and the Acts.. 
Nothing is more evident than that 
Christianity went into the tomb of 



anti 0t^tt Snterpretationsf 



89 



Joseph of Arimathea, with the 
body of Christ. 

But something occurred which 
suddenly lifted that group of sor- 
rowing men and women into an ec- 
stasy of faith and joy, and they said 
it was the coming again to life and 
activity of their Lord and Master. 

The fact that Christianity exists 
to-day proves that Jesus rose, but 
the final and unanswerable proof is 
the appearance of Jesus to Saul. 

Harnack, the greatest of patris- 
tic scholars, contends that Saul 
was converted within ten years af- 
ter the crucifixion. The resurrec- 
tion had been, during all those 
years, the very central subject of 
controversy. This means that up- 
on the denial of the resurrection all 
the dogmatism of SauPs strong, 
positive nature had concentrated. 

The slow years passed. Then, 
not to some credulous, wonder-lov- 
ing peasant or myth-dreamer, but 



Luke xxiv. 
19. 



The final 
proof. 



Acts. xxvi. 
12-20. 



go 



Mo 3^om in tfje 3nn 



What the 
risen Christ 
is doing. 



Eph. i. 22f 
23. 



I Cor. xii. 



I Cor. xii. 
8-11. 

Acts xvi. 7. 



Heb. vii. 
25. 



to the very arch-denier himself, 
scholar, thinker, man of action, 
man of strong tenacity of belief, 
of inflexible will — the unanswerable 
demonstration was given. 

The man who, after this, doubts 
the fact of the resurrection is not 
accessible to conviction by proof 
concerning any fact which he does 
not wish to believe. 

The ministry of the risen Christ 
is in three parts: He is Shepherd of 
the sheep of God, according to 
Psalm xxiii. and John x. ; the High 
Priest of the redeemed, according 
to John xvii. and Heb. vii.-viii. ; the 
Head of the Church, '* Which is 
his body, the fulness of him that 
filleth all in all." 

As such He baptizes with the 
Spirit all who believe, thus uniting 
them to His body, endues them 
with gifts, guides them in service, 
renewing their life from His own, 
and procures for them the mercies 



anti (0tf)er Snterpretationsi 



91 



needful for a pilgrim body in the 
world. 

Never can the believer know the 
exceeding greatness of His power 
to usward who believe, nor enter in- 
to spiritual rest and joy, until he 
comprehends, in some measure at 
least, this three-fold resurrection 
work of Christ. 

There is a disproportionate at- 
tention given to the Jewish earth- 
ministry of our Lord during three 
and one half years in Judea and 
Galilee; and a consequent neglect 
of the mighty and varied ministry 
of the ascended Christ, which has 
already lasted over nineteen hun- 
dred years. *' This ought ye to 
have done, and not to have left the 
other undone." 



A caution. 



Matt. X. 
5, 6. 

Matt. XV. 
24. 

Rom. XV. 8. 



92 



i^ Eoom in tfie Jfnn 



The minis- 
try of com- 
fort 



John X. 3. 

Luke xxiv. 
34. 



Luke xxiv. 
13-30. 



John XX, 
19, 20. 



Tear 
blinded, 

John XX, 
11-15. 



JESUS APPEARS TO MARY 

" Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weep- 
est thou?" John xx. 15. 

'nr^HE ministry of comfort — 
-■• that is the meaning of this in- 
cident. The great Shepherd of the 
sheep has been brought again from 
the dead through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant and He begins 
His shepherd work just outside the 
empty tomb by calling '' His own 
sheep by name." Presently He will 
go after His straying sheep, Peter. 
Then He will reestablish the faith 
of two wavering sheep, and then He 
will go to the fold and quiet the 
hearts of His excited and disturbed 
sheep. 

But He begins with the sheep 
who weeps. It illustrates Jesus' 
method of comfort. 

We have here a tear-blinded dis- 
ciple. Jesus is there, but she sees 
Him but dimly through wet eyes, 



anb dottier interpretationss 93 



and supposes Him to be the garden- 
er. She was not so very far wrong 
after all. Jesus is everything, in- 
cluding Gardener. ** Ye are God's iCor. in 
tilled ground," says the apostle; 
and so the divine Gardener ploughs 
us, breaking up the hard fallow- 
ground of our hearts; passing the 
harrow over the sown seed, and 
then most tenderly watering it with 
the dew of Hermon, and calling the 
south wind to blow upon His gar- 
den " that the spices thereof may 
flow out," and then, forgetting in 
the harvest joy the hard day of the 
plow and the harrow, we are ready 
to cry, '' Let my beloved come into 
his garden and eat his pleasant 
fruits." Mary was not far wrong 
when she supposed Him to be the 
gardener, but that morning He had 
put His hand to the shepherd staff 
and not to the plow. 



But Mary was weeping and she 
could not see Him for tears. That 



9. 



Hosea x. 



Fsa. 
cxxxiii. 3. 



Song iv. 
16. 



Psa. xxiii. 
4. 



The bad 
use of 
sorrow. 



94 



^0 i^om in ttie 3i[nn 



How Jesus 
consoles. 



Matt. V. 4. 



Why weep- 
est thouf 

John XX. 
IS. 



Matt, xiv. 



IS the bad use of sorrow, to let it 
hide the Consoler. The right use 
of sorrow makes of tears a thou- 
sand lenses through which Jesus is 
drawn nearer. 

Notice the method of the divine 
consolations. Be sure it is written 
that we may study it. Be sure the 
method has not changed, nor ever 
will change; so that if we see how 
Jesus comforted Mary Magdalene 
we shall understand how He will 
seek to comfort us when we sorrow. 

First, He asks a question, ** Why 
weepest thou? Whom seekest 
thou?" But did not Jesus know? 
Oh, yes, He knew; but He also 
knew something else. He knew that 
the beginning of comfort for Mary 
would be to tell it all to Him. 
When John Baptist was slain his 
disciples '* took up the body and 
buried it, and went and told Jesus." 
There was wisdom beyond words in 
that. A grief is half assuaged when 



anb (letter interpretations^ 



95 



it Is told, and If It Is told to Jesus 
it is already half sanctified. 

And, secondly, Jesus called her 
by name. Consider the inner mean- 
ing of that. What was it but the 
assurance of personal interest, per- 
sonal sympathy? If Mary was a 
subject of a kingdom working auto- 
matically by means of self-enforc- 
ing laws, that is one thing. If she 
was exalted to be the personal 
friend of the King, that is quite an- 
other thing. If Jesus is touched by, 
and takes account of, only the ag- 
gregate of human sorrow in a col- 
lective kind of way — so many mil- 
lions of human tears reported to- 
day as against so many on the cor- 
responding date a twelvemonth ago 
— that is one thing. But if Jesus 
has time to think of Mary's tears as 
if there were no other weeping one 
on earth, time to put her *^ tears in 
a bottle,'' time to say, '' Mary," 
that is quite another thing. Ah, if 
we will only '' tell Jesus " He will 



' Mary ! 



John XV. 
15. 



Psa. Ivi. 8. 



96 



j^ Eoom in t^t Mn 



Comfort 
through 
work, 

John XX. 
17. 



'Rah- 
bonil " 

I Cor. i. 
3f 



Three 
turning^ 
points in 
Acts, 



find means to prove that He thinks 
upon us! 

And, thirdly, Jesus gave her 
work to do. ** Go to my brethren 

and say " That is a great 

medicine for weeping eyes — to 
'' go, say " some glad thing to 
others who are cast down. It is not 
the whole cure, but it is a necessary 
part of it. 

So comfort begins when we tell 
Jesus; grows mightily when He 
makes us see how intimate and per- 
sonal His love is, and is complete 
when we go to bring gladness to 
other sad hearts. 

THE BAPTISM WITH THE 
HOLY SPIRIT 

*' The Holy Ghost fell on all them which 
heard the word.'^ Acts x. 44. 

^T^HERE are three great pivotal 

-■" events in the book of Acts, 

the descent of the Holy Spirit at 



anb 0ti}tv 3nterpretation£{ 



97 



Pentecost, which was the long-pre- 
dicted advent of a Person of the 
Godhead; the conversion of Saul, 
which gave to the Church Christ's 
elect apostle for organizing institu- 
tional Christianity, and for receiv- 
ing and recording the great truths 
concerning the mystery of the 
Church; and the opening of the 
door of the kingdom to the 
Gentiles in the house of Corne- 
lius. 

The first preaching of the Gospel 
was, as Christ had directed, to the 
Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Sa- 
maria. It was therefore preaching 
of a peculiar type. The Jews were 
the children of the covenant, and 
by their birth and circumcision al- 
ready in covenant relation with 
God. They believed in and wor- 
shipped Jehovah, the true God, 
but they had crucified their long-ex- 
pected Messiah. Of them, there- 
fore, was demanded repentance, '* a 
change of mind *' as to Jesus and 



Joel ii. 28, 
29. 

Matt. iii. 
II. 

Acts ii. 
1-4. 

Acts ix. 
1-6. 

Acts xxvi. 
16. 

Matt. xvi. 
19. 

Acts X. 
1-48. 



The Jews. 
Acts i. 8. 



Gen. xvii. 
10-17. 

Acts iii. 

25, 2t>. 



Acts iii. 
19-26. 



98 



^0 3^om in tf)e Mn 



His Messiahship, and faith in Him 
as such. 



The Gen- 
tiles, 



Eph. ii. 12. 



Rom. iii. 9, 
19, 20. 



Gal. iii. 29. 



But the Gentile position was 
wholly different. The Gentiles 
were *' without Christ, being aliens 
from the commonwealth of Israel, 
and strangers from the covenants of 
promise, having no hope, and with- 
out God In the world." 

To the Gentiles, therefore, a 
message calling them to faithfulness 
to a covenant Into which they had 
never been brought, would have 
been no glad tidings. For the Gen- 
tile world the Gospel must be, as It 
Is, wholly of grace; as, too, only 
grace can avail for the Jew under 
condemnation of the law. No Gen- 
tile ever finds himself within the 
covenanted mercies of God until he 
has believed on the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 



The power 
of the keys, 



To Peter (not to his so-called 
successors, for an apostle can have 



anb dirtier Snterpretationsi 



99 



no successors,) was given the unique 
privilege of the keys, and he ful- 
filled his office once for all when he 
opened the kingdom to the Jews at 
Pentecost, and when he opened the 
kingdom to the Gentiles in the 
house of Cornelius. 

Peter's sermon on the latter oc- 
casion is concerning Jesus Christ, 
Whom God sent, preaching peace. 
He rehearses the facts of Christ's 
baptism with the Holy Ghost, His 
brief ministry of blessing, His cruci- 
fixion and resurrection, and the 
great message of salvation to 
*' whosoever believeth in Him." 
And when this saving message had 
been announced that event occurred 
which marks a distinct and vitally 
important advance in the truth con- 
cerning the Holy Spirit. ** The 
Holy Ghost fell on all them 
which heard the word." It is 
needless to say that the hearing 
referred to was the hearing of 
faith. 



Matt. xvi. 
19. 



Acts ii. 
36-38. 

Acts X. 
34-48. 

Peter's 
sermon. 

Acts X. 
34-43. 



The Holy 
Spirit and 
Gentile 



lOO 



i^o 3^om in tfje Inn 



A new 
thing. 

Acts X. 44. 



Acts viii. 
14-17. 



Acts xi. 
15-18. 

I Cor. xii. 
i2,i3,R.V. 

Eph. i. 13, 
14. 

I Cor. vi. 
19. 



Acts xix. 
1-6. 



The point specially to be ob- 
served is, that for the first time the 
believing hearer was immediately 
baptized with the Holy Spirit, and 
that this occurred the very first time 
the Gospel was preached to Gen- 
tiles. 

So long as the Gospel was con- 
fined within Jewish bounds, an in- 
terval occurred between conversion 
and the baptism with the Spirit. 
And not only so, but in some way, 
by prayer, or the laying on of 
hands, the mediation of the apos- 
tles was required. 

But, from the moment when Pe- 
ter preached grace to Gentile hear- 
ers, neither interval, mediation, 
seeking, nor any supplementary or 
additional act of faith stands be- 
tween the receiving of Christ as a 
Saviour, and the baptism with the 
Holy Spirit. 

The case of the disciples of John 
the Baptist, whom Paul found at 
Ephesus, constitutes no exception. 



anb 0tfjtv SnterpretationjS 



lOI 



Their lack of the baptism with the 
Spirit was not due to their igno- 
rance of the advent of the Spirit at 
Pentecost, but to their ignorance 
that Christ had come. They were 
still looking for '* one who should 
come after " John the Baptist. In 
other words, they were not believ- 
ers on a crucified Christ. Fur- 
thermore, they were Jews, and so, 
after their conversion, Paul medi- 
ated their baptism with the Spirit. 

The vital fact then remains, that 
from the opening of the door to the 
Gentiles, faith on the Lord Jesus 
Christ and the baptism with the 
Spirit are coincident facts. Not 
once does Paul, or Peter, or James, 
or John, or Jude exhort believers 
to *' seek the baptism with the 
Spirit." Every other imaginable 
exhortation they do utter, but never 
this. It is simply incredible that 
an experience so important should 
have been forgotten. 



Acts xix. 4. 



'' Yield, '* 

not, 

" Seek.' * 

Rom. vi. 
16, 19. 

Rom. viii. 
13-17. 



I02 



i^o Eoom in tfje 3Jnn 



Eph. iii. 
3-10. 



I Cor. xii. 
12, 13. 



Eph. i. 13 



But not all 
are filled. 



I Cor. xiii. 

7-20. 

Eph. V. 
18-20. 

Acts iv. 
31-33. 



Eph. V. 18. 



The Apostle Paul, to whom was 
committed the revelation of Church 
truth, not only does not exhort or 
command believers to seek the 
Spirit's baptism, but he assures be- 
lievers that by one Spirit they 
are baptized into one body, and 
have all been made to drink into 
one Spirit. That '^ upon believ- 
ing " they were '' sealed with that 
Holy Spirit of promise." 

The modern confusion (appar- 
ently hopeless) on this point is due 
to confusing together two distinct 
operations of the Spirit, the bap- 
tism and the filling. The function 
of the former is to unite the believ- 
er to the body of Christ, and to im- 
part gifts for service. The result 
of the filling is blessing in life and 
power in service. What Christians 
need is not the baptism (which 
they have) but the filling with 
the Spirit, to which they are ex- 
horted. 



anb 0ti^tv Snterpretationss 



103 



And the filling comes through 
confession and prayer. 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 

" And he said, Who art thou, Lord ? " 

Acts ix. 5. 

^TpHE conversion of Saul is one 
^ of the turning points in hu- 
man history, for it brought to the 
service of Christ the man who, un- 
der God, has most powerfully af- 
fected human life and thought dur- 
ing the last two thousand years. In 
the providence of God it was re- 
served to this Jew of Tarsus to 
act a part in the secondary work of 
redemption, greater not only than 
that of any other man, but than 
that of all other men, for it was 
given to him to receive, at first 
hand from God, and to communi- 
cate to the world, those amazing 
revelations which are embodied in 
his fourteen Epistles. 



Acts iv, 
29-31. 



An epoch- 
making 
man. 



Eph. iii. 
i-ii. 



Gal. i. II, 
12. 

I Cor. xi. 

23- 

I Cor. ii. 
10-13. 



I04 



j^o 3^om in tf)e 3nn 



Distinctive 
revelations 
through 
Paul. 



Matt. xvi. 
1 8. 



John xvi. 

12. 



I Cor. XV. 
1-3. 



John xii. 
24. 



Luke xxii. 
20. 

Matt. xxvi. 
28. 



Apart from the writings of Paul 
we should know nothing of the 
origin, relationships, distinctive 
calling, service and destiny of the 
Church of God. 

Of these things Christ said noth- 
ing. He simply announced that 
He would build His Church, leav- 
ing all to be revealed after His de- 
parture. These were among the 
" many things " which He had to 
say to His disciples, but which they 
could not then bear. 

Moreover, to Paul chiefly, were 
committed those further revela- 
tions which explain and apply the 
redemptive work of Jesus Christ. 
Of the meaning of that work our 
Lord gave profound and founda- 
tional intimations. His death 
should be like a corn of wheat, fall- 
ing into the ground and imparting 
its life to countless corns of wheat. 

His sacrifice was to establish 
*' the new covenant in my blood,'* 
and was to be ** shed for many for 



anb 0ti}tx Snterpretationg 



105 



the remission of sins." But He left 
it for the mighty ministr}^ of the 
Spirit, through Paul, to develop 
these generic intimations into the 
great doctrines of justification, rec- 
onciliation and redemption. Christ 
planted the acorn in the great 
teachings of the Gospels, the tree is 
the Epistles. 

And just here lies the essential 
folly of the so-called '* back to 
Christ " movement — the attempt to 
construct a sufficient organic and 
creedal Christianity out of the 
words of our Lord alone, ignoring 
the apostolic revelations. It is a 
movement in the face of His own 
express declaration that in depart- 
ing from the world He was leaving 
an incomplete revelation. *^ How- 
beit when he, the Spirit of truth, is 
come, he will guide you into all 
truth." 

The conversion of Saul has also 
a great typical interest. Saul, *^ an 



John xvi. 
12, 13. 



Saul*s con- 
version 
typical. 



io6 



Jto i^oom in tfie Knn 



Phil. iii. 5. 



Ezek. XX. 
34, 38. 

Zech. xiii. 
1-6. 

Rom. xi. 
25-27. 



Saul con* 
victed. 



Acts vii, 
54-60. 



Acts ix. 5. 



Hebrew of the Hebrews/' was con- 
verted by the personal ministry of 
the ascended and glorified Christ. 
He will shine, as a star, in no crown 
of mortal evangelist. His conver- 
sion was wrought by the Lord in 
glory. In this Paul is a type, for 
the future conversion of Israel will 
be the alone work of the glorified 
Christ at His second coming. 

We may well believe that from 
the moment of Stephen's martyr- 
dom, when Saul saw and consented 
to the death, by stoning, of a young 
man with the face of an angel, a 
face over which God had spread 
the covering whiteness of the She- 
kinah; saw the cruel stones crush 
the life out of that holy body, and 
thought that so the truth of God 
was being maintained, and God 
glorified; the whole being of Saul 
was shaken by profound question- 
ings. The very violence of his con- 
duct proves this. He was " kicking 



anb (0tf)er Snterpretations? 



107 



against the goads " of an awakened 
conscience. 

What Stephen saw that day was 
the '* glory of God, and Jesus 
standing on the right hand of God," 
and the vision was more glorious 
and comforting than the stones 
were painful, so that the death of 
the first martyr was, perhaps, the 
happiest death that ever ended a 
human life. The compensations of 
heaven infinitely outweigh any pos- 
sible suffering into which the path 
of duty may lead the child of God. 
Whatever the deprivation, what- 
ever the loss, whatever the pain of 
that path, one moment of heaven 
more than compensates for all. 

Apart, however, from these 
great historical and typical consid- 
erations, the two questions of the 
stricken man on the Damascus 
road: ^* Who art thou. Lord?" 
and ** What wilt thou have me to 
do? " are the keynote of the whole 



Acts vii. 
56. 



Rom. viii. 
I7» 18. 



2 Cor. iv. 
17, 18. 



The key- 
note of 
Paul's life. 



Acts ix. 
5. 6. 



io8 



j^ i^oom in tfje 3nn 



Phil. iii. 

10. 



2 Tim. i. 

12. 

I Cor. xiii. 



1 Cor. xi. 
23. 

Acts xi. 
4» 5. 

Acts xxiii. 
II. 

2 Cor. xii. 
1-4. 



life and service of the great apostle 
to the Gentiles, for the two con- 
suming passions of Paul were to 
know Christ and to obey Him. 
*' That I may know him " he 
writes to the Philippians, as of his 
supreme desire, and this well on 
toward the close of his great minis- 
try. He could, indeed, say, '* I 
know whom I have believed," but 
it was that knowledge '* in part," 
" as through a glass darkly," which 
could never satisfy the burning love 
of his heart. 

He had been repeatedly in per- 
sonal conference with the Lord, had 
been caught up to heaven and heard 
unspeakable things, and this was 
but as fuel to the flame of Paul's 
longing to know his Lord. And 
with the passion to know, was an 
equal passion to obey, and this is 
the two-fold secret of PauPs un- 
paralleled service, and the key to 
all noblest discipleship. 



anti 0ti)tx 3nterpretation£{ 



109 



ALMOST PERSUADED 

" Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost 
thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Acts 
xxvi. 28. 

^T^HE address of Paul before 
^ Agrippa is at once the model 
and the despair of the gospel 
preacher. Perfect in fact, simplic- 
ity, dignity and rhetoric, it also is 
the highest known instance of that 
perfect art in public discourse which 
conceals art. Some one in Rufus 
Choate's hearing called this ad- 
dress, '' Paul's defence before Ag- 
rippa." 

^' Defence,'' said the great advo- 
cate, *' why, sir, defence was not in 
Paul's thought. His one purpose 
was to make a Christian of Agrip- 
pa, and he nearly succeeded." 

Addressing one who knew and 
believed the prophets, Paul grounds 
his appeal upon the prophetic testi- 



Thg perfect 
sermon. 



Acts xxvi. 
3f 27. 

Acts xxvi. 
6, 7, 22, 23. 



no 



i^o 3l^om in tfje Inn 



Acts xxvi. 

8. 



mony. The essential thing is 
that he shall move Agrippa from 
a mere intellectual belief in the 
prophets, to an actual and per- 
sonal belief in Him of whom the 
prophets speak. For this pur- 
pose he boldly takes his stand 
upon the fact of the resurrection 
of Christ. If Agrippa comes to 
believe that, all his other difficul- 
ties must logically vanish, for 
if Jesus of Nazareth was raised 
from the dead, then His tremen- 
dous claims are authenticated; He 
is indeed the Christ, the Son of the 
living God. He chooses a two-fold 
method, the appeal to reason and 
the appeal to experience. 



Acts ii. 

32. 



The appeal 
to reason. 

Acts xxvi. 
8. 



The appeal to reason he con- 
denses into a perfectly unanswer- 
able question: "Why should it be 
thought a thing incredible with you, 
that God should raise the dead? " 

The reanimation of a dead body 
is indeed a stupendous miracle, but 



anb 0ti)tv Mttvpxttatm^ 



III 



by no means an incredible miracle 
if God is brought in. To say that 
all things are possible with God is 
to state a truism. But though 
Agrippa must admit that God could 
raise the dead Christ, it might still 
be a question whether He actually 
did. Paul meets this with his per- 
sonal testimony. Paul knows that 
God raised Christ from the dead 
because he, Paul, has spoken with 
the risen Christ. 

There is something equally sim- 
ple and sublime in Paul's confidence 
in the convincing power of his per- 
sonal testimony. It is a well found- 
ed confidence, always. Truth has 
an accent, a convincingness, of her 
own. The great lack, the greatest 
lack, of present-day Christianity is 
the absence of a clear, definite, per- 
sonal testimony, based on personal 
experience. The preacher who 
knows and believes the prophets, 
and who says *^ none other things 
than those which the prophets and 



The appeal 
to experi- 
ence. 
Acts ix. 
4-6. 



The power 
of testi- 
mony. 

Acts i. 8. 

John iv. 
42. 

Acts iv. 13. 

John ix. 
25. 



112 



i^o il^om in tfie inn 



The uses of 
vision. 

Acts xxvi. 
19, 20, 



Acts xvi. 
9, 10. 



Moses did say should come," who 
is in personal fellowship with the 
risen Christ, and who has a vital 
personal experience, will never lack 
fruit of his ministry. 

But the heart of things here is 
Paul's obedience to the heavenly 
vision. A '' vision," in Scripture, is 
essentially an unseen verity made 
real. The sinner to whom the cross 
becomes, even for a moment, an 
objective reality, has seen a heav- 
enly vision. The saint who sees in 
Scripture a higher, sweeter, holier 
life than he is living, has had 
a heavenly vision. And visions 
are things demanding obedience. 
Never are they given for enjoy- 
ment merely. In a very real sense 
the whole story of every powerful 
and saintly life, every life which 
grows in saintliness and power, may 
be written in that one word, *' I 
was not disobedient unto the heav- 
enly vision." 



anil 0tt^tt Mtttptttatms 



"3 



THE NEW LIFE 

" I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me/' Phil. iv. 13. 

^nr^HE Christian position in 
^ grace, *' accepted in the be- 
loved," demands a corresponding 
experience. The law demanded a 
righteous life, grace demands .a 
spiritual life. 

Salvation has its source in the 
heart of God, and reaches us on the 
principle of grace, or unmerited 
favor, through faith alone, without 
works. 

Indeed when one thinks of the 
depth from which the sinner is tak- 
en, and of the height to which the 
saint is raised, one wonders that 
any sane being could ever have sup- 
posed that works could have any 
place in such a salvation. One says 
with Zophar, '* It is high as 
heaven ; what canst thou do ? deeper 
than hell; what canst thou know? '' 



The new 
ethic, 
Eph. i. 6. 
Matt. V. 
3-II. 
GaL V. 
22-23. 
Eph. iv. 
30-32. 
Phil. iv. 
4-9. 

John iii. 
16. 

Eph. ii. 
4-9. 



Eph. 
1-3. 



Eph. i. 
3-13. 



Job xi. 8. 



114 



J^ ii^oom in tfie 3nn 



Eph. ii. 4. 



The ethic 

super- 
human. 

Col. iii. 1-4. 



Eph. iv. 
I, 2, 



Eph. vi. 12. 



Gal. V. 16, 
17. 



Man Is helpless and hopeless in 
death and sin. Man cannot lift 
himself out of death into fellow- 
ship and oneness with Christ in the 
heavenlies, '* but God who is rich 
in mercy " can. 

It has been objected to Christi- 
anity that it requires of the believer 
a superhuman type of living. The 
objection is well taken — it does. 
No mere morality, however high, 
no most scrupulous observance of 
the outward things of the religious 
life, as Bible reading, prayer, 
church-going, almsgiving, will fill 
out the demand of the Christian 
ethic. It is a heavenly standard for 
earthly living. The whole environ- 
ment is hostile to that standard; 
Satan and his hosts are determined 
the believer shall not realize it in 
his own experience; nay, the believ- 
er's own flesh rebels against it 

Here comes the peril: The be- 



anti d^tijer interpretations^ 



"5 



Hever will be tempted to say, '' This 
is an ideal merely. It is not seri- 
ously meant to be fully realized. 
It helps just as the moon helps if I 
make it my target, for while I shall 
not strike the moon, I shall shoot 
higher than I should if I made the 
barn roof my target." 

But the type of Christian experi- 
ence which we have in the Epistles 
is not set forth as an unattainable 
ideal. It is indeed above man's 
natural capacity, but with the super- 
human demand is given a super- 
human enablement, and millions of 
God's dear children, from Paul 
down to this day, have lived in 
'' steadfastness," '' unity," '* help- 
fulness," constant unbroken joy in 
the Lord, ** moderation," utter de- 
liverance from care, with mind and 
heart garrisoned in the peace of 
God. Millions have lived in the 
things that are ** true, honest, just, 
pure, lovely, and of good report," 
and so have known the constant 



I Cor. XV. 

58. 

Eph. iv. 3. 
Phil. iv. 5. 

Phil. iv. 6, 
Phil. iv. 8. 



ii6 



Mo 3^om in tlje 3Jnn 



Phil. iv. 9. 



Phil. iv. 1 1. 



Phil. iv. 13. 



Gal. V. 16, 
17. 



The believ- 
er super- 
natural, 

John iii. 
16. 

2 Pet. i. 4. 

John X. 28. 

Rom. viii. 
2. 



presence of the God of peace. 
They, like Paul, have learned in 
whatsoever state they are, therein 
to be content. 

And they have lived this type of 
life because they have learned the 
secret, and that secret is, I can 
do all things through Christ my 
strength. Along with the super- 
natural and humanly unattainable 
standard of Christian living goes, 
under grace, a supernatural and al- 
together adequate enablement. 

The Christian is more than a 
forgiven sinner with a high ideal. 
He has received the new birth, and 
so been made a partaker of the Di- 
vine nature ; Jesus Christ, the Lord 
of Life, has imparted to him His 
own life, and has sent, to indwell 
this child of God, His own Divine 
Spirit. 

Nay, more. At the right hand 
of the Father, exalted to be a High 
Priest, is the believer's risen Lord, 



antr 0tf)tx Snterpretationsi 



117 



Who, ** ever liveth to make inter- 
cession " for him. Gifted with all 
authority in heaven and in earth, 
He watches over and commands 
the providences of the believer^s 
life. Having Himself suffered, be- 
ing tempted, He is able also to suc- 
cor them that are tempted. Ten- 
derly regardful of human weakness, 
He is *' touched," not angered, with 
the feeling of our infirmities. 
Nothing necessary to the Chris- 
tian's victory, power and peace has 
been forgotten. 

And the one broad distinction be- 
tween Christian and Christian is 
that some are seeking by self-effort 
to attain to the standard of right 
Christian living, while others, in 
utter self-distrust, are yielding 
themselves to the great supernatu- 
ral enablements, which are the 
birthright of every believer. Some 
are " going about to establish their 
own righteousness," others are 
" submitting themselves unto the 



Heb. vii. 
25. 



Matt, 
xxviii. 18. 



Heb. iv. 15. 



Rom. X. 3. 



ii8 



i^o Eoom in tfje 3nn 



Rom. viii. 

2-4. 



T/i^ mys- 
tery of suf- 
fering. 



Job xlii. 3. 



righteousness of God." The first 
are ever hoping to fulfil the right- 
eousness of the law, and ever fail- 
ing; the second, walking in the 
Spirit, have the blessed experience 
of the righteousness of the law ful- 
filled " in '' (not'* by") them. 



THE FIERY FURNACE 

" Who IS that God who shall deliver you 
out of my hands?" Dan. iii. 15. 

/^ NE of the mysteries of life is 
^^ the suffering of the good. 
Why should the best of God's serv- 
ants have affliction upon affliction? 
It was the problem of Job. The 
troubled patriarch found it insolu- 
ble down to the very last chapter. 
It is true that it seemed no prob- 
lem at all to Eliphaz the Teman- 
ite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and 
Zophar the Naamathite. Ah, they 
knew! The very affliction of af- 
flictions, is that the petty good al- 



anil 0ti^tt interpretations; 



119 



ways know. It is our peril that we 
shall in very perplexity and broken- 
ness of heart accept their small 
theories. 

The story of the three Hebrews 
may help us against that hour when 
in our sorrow and pain we shall be- 
lieve Bildad and the others, and 
add to our sufferings that of a 
painful search for sins. For Bil- 
dad and his sort always believe that 
we, whose tears are falling, are 
hypocrites. Poor Job knew him- 
self to be no hypocrite, and yet he 
could find no better explanation of 
his misery than that God was angry 
with him. 

It is the tragedy of suffering that 
stricken saints torment themselves 
with the notion that God is angry 
with them. But Shadrach, Me- 
shach and Abednego were the best 
men, save Daniel, whom God had 
on earth. It was the path of obedi- 
ence, not of disobedience, which led 



Job xvi. X X, 



God is not 
angry. 



Dan. iii. 
1-30. 



I20 



i^ Eoom in tfje 3nn 



Heb. xii. 
5-12. 



them to the door of the furnace. 
The Son of God Himself trod that 
pathway. Doubtless there are 
chastisements for the wilfully diso- 
bedient child. Such cases present 
no mystery. 

No, the Divine wrath does not 
explain the suffering of Christians. 
Take an illustration : A ton of pig 
iron is worth about $4.00, a ton of 
watch springs about $30,000, and 
a ton of Damascus blades about 
$100,000. And the springs and 
the blades were all pig iron once. 
But there is no rose-strewn path- 
way over which pig iron may saun- 
ter into springship and bladehood, 
nor may pig iron be smitten into 
perfection of edge and temper by 
one fierce touch of the furnace. 
Again and again it must be bathed 
in flame, and again and again beat- 
en upon the anvil. 

But the smith is not angry with 
the pig iron. His blows are not 
the blows of wrath, nor his thrust- 



anb 0t\)tt Snterpretationsf 



121 



ings into the furnace the tokens of 
judgment. A sinner becomes a 
saint by faith, but he does not be- 
come saintly in one day, nor by one 
testing. 

Twenty years before, these men 
had stood with Daniel under test, 
to determine whether they would be 
loyal to God and conscience In small 
things. Now they are ready for a 
more fundamental and profound 
testing. 

The issue now Is between the 
worship of gold and the worship of 
God. It Is the most practical, con- 
stant and universal of all tests. It 
Is a choice which every man in every 
age must make. In our day the 
matter Is usually thought to be one 
susceptible of compromise — God is 
to be worshipped on the first day 
of the week, and the image of gold 
on the other six. But for ever and 
ever Jesus Christ has stamped upon 
that compromise the word impos- 



Heb. 

Heb. 
5-10. 



X. 10. 

xii. 



Dan. 
6-is. 



Dan. 

I-I2. 



Gold or 
God? 



122 



j^ 3^om in t{ie 3nn 



Matt. vi. 
24. 



Victory, 



Dan. iii. 
16. 



sible, " Ye cannot serve God and 
mammon." 

Here are three men who are 
minded to make no such compro- 
mise. They elect to stand erect be- 
fore the glittering image, and to 
bow to nothing less than God. So 
the furnace is heated for them. It 
will be heated for any man in any 
age who absolutely refuses to bow 
to any idol — financial, social, eccle- 
siastical, political. 

Now note the compensations: 
First of all, God gifted these men 
with noble composure and courage. 
Their heads were unbowed by fear. 
'' O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no 
need to answer thee in this mat- 
ter." I think that passage one of 
the finest things in the Bible. It Is 
God's gift to the erect of soul. 
And this superb courage and poise 
is itself an exceedingly great re- 
ward, more worth than any gift 
purchasable with gold. It is al- 



anb (Btf}tt Snterpretationsf 



123 



ways so. Let Moses elect affliction 
with the people of God rather than 
the riches in Egypt, and instantly it 
can be written of him, '* Not fear- 
ing the wrath of the king." 
*' Knowest thou not," said Pilate, 
*' that I have power to crucify 
thee?" Note the untroubled se- 
renity of the answer: "Thou 
couldst have no power at all against 
me except It were given thee from 
above." 

And, most wonderful of all, the 
furnace proved to be the very audi- 
ence chamber of the King of kings. 
*' Lo," said Nebuchadnezzar, " I 
see four men loose, walking in the 
midst of the fire, and the form of 
the fourth is like unto the Son of 
God." Christ is never so near as 
when we suffer. 



Heb. xi. 27. 



John 
10, I 



XIX. 

I. 



Dan. 
25. 



124 



Mo 3i^oom m ttie 3nn 



A great 
scene. 

I Sam. xvii. 
40-50. 



DAVID AND GOLIATH 

**I come to thee in the name of the Lord 
of hosts." I Sam. xvii. 45. 

^T^HIS is the scene that the artists 
^ love, and the children. A 
thousand times the painters have 
set their hand to the portrayal of 
the great deed which David 
wrought that day. When the paint- 
er has been ignoble he has given us 
David's exultation over the dead 
giant. When he has been of lar- 
ger simpler mind, he has shown us 
the ruddy boy in his joy of battle 
— the straight out right arm which 
has just launched the smooth stone, 
the intent gaze awaiting the sure 
result. And however pictured, the 
children have understood. 

Is it more than a child's tale, 
though a true? Is there any moral 
here, or fixed principle worth 
our learning? Is it not to be found 
in David's motive, in the cause 



anti (Bti)tx Snterpretationsf 



125 



which nerved his hand and set his 
heart aflame with holy zeal and 
rage? 

^* I come to thee in the name of 
the Lord of hosts, the God of the 
armies of Israel whom thou hast 
defied . . . that all the earth 
may know that there is a God in 
Israel . . . and all this assembly 
shall know that the Lord saveth/' 
** For who is this uncircumcised 
Philistine, that he should defy the 
armies of the living God? " 

There is need that this high 
note shall be struck again in the 
service of God. More and more 
the motive in service comes to be 
purely humanitarian. The Gospel 
must be preached and missions 
maintained that humanity, which is 
in sore distress with the conse- 
quences of sin, may ^* have the bene- 
fits of Christian civilization.'' Op- 
pression is everywhere, disease, 
ignorance and degradation, and the 



I Sam. xvii. 
45-47. 



I Sam. xvii. 
26. 



Motive in 
service. 



126 



Mo 3^om in tfje Snn 



Put God 
iirst. 



Gospel emancipates, heals, enlight- 
ens and uplifts. " Earth," we say, 
^' needs a better ideal, a loftier 
ethic." The human mind lies fal- 
low, it must be broken up that bet- 
ter seed may grow. The millions 
of heathendom are enslaved to su- 
perstition and ignorance, and the 
Gospel must be preached because 
where the Gospel goes these things 
diminish or vanish. 

The Goliaths of intemperance 
and impurity must be fought and 
slain, because such an appalling 
proportion of the population find 
drunkards' graves, or are sacrificed 
to human lust. From these evils 
humanity must be redeemed and 
protected. 

But the humanitarian appeal, the 
humanitarian motive, are losing 
force. We do not care intensely 
any more about the girl babies suf- 
focated in the mud of the Ganges, 
the child-widow, sorrowful under 



anti 0ti)tv Snterpretationg 



127 



her palm tree, or the procession 
staggering on to the grave of the 
drunkard. 

Might it not be worth while once 
more to think of God in all this ; of 
His rights in every human being — 
rights outraged by all this sin and 
shame? Might it not be worth 
trying, at least, to reestablish as a 
mxOtive the exaltation of the Lord 
in this world? Might it not be 
well to begin again to look upon 
sin not merely, nor primarily, as 
something which is hurtful to man, 
but an insult to God? 

Suppose we could enthrone again 
as the central motive in missions 
Paul's great word: *^ For the love 
of Christ constraineth us; because 
we thus judge, that if one died for 
all, then were all dead; and that 
he died for all, that they which 
live should not henceforth live unto 
themselves, BUT UNTO HIM 
who died for them and rose again." 
The men, in and out of Scripture, 



John xxi. 
15-17. 

2 Cor. V. 
14, IS- 



Heb. xi. 

1-40. 



128 



Mo 9^oom in tfje 3nn 



Num. xiv. 
13-16. 



Genesis 

and human 
nature. 



who have taken David's ground, 
who have put God and His great 
name first, and whose passion has 
been to make that name known and 
exalted in the earth, are the men 
who have prevailed in prayer and 
won notable victories in the con- 
flicts of faith. 



JOSEPH IN PRISON 

*' And Joseph's master took him, and put 
him into the prison." Gen. xxxix. 20. 

f^ ENESIS is at once profoundly 
^"■"^ artless, and artlessly pro- 
found. Its narratives are level to 
the comprehension of a child and 
yet uncover the secrets of the hu- 
man heart. There is in the episode 
of Joseph's imprisonment the com- 
mon play of human motive, and the 
mutability of human affairs. When 
Shakespeare wrote, *' Hell hath no 
fury like a woman scorned," he 
was not thinking of the hatred of 



anb 0tbtx Snterpretations; 



129 



a base woman in ancient Egypt for 
a pure-hearted man, but only of a 
permanent fact in human experi- 
ence. 

The story would not have been 
worth preservation, nor would it 
have been preserved, had it not held 
a great spiritual truth, the key of 
which is '* But the Lord was with 
Joseph." An especial presence is, 
of course, meant. 

In the sense of His everywhere- 
ness, God is ** with " the entire crea- 
tion, but in Scripture this phrase 
stands for a particular nearness, 
and is vitally connected with the 
most striking events. 

The Lord was '* with " Jacob 
despite his self-confidence, and 
fleshly ways, until He had made 
him *' Israel, a prince with God.'' 
He was *^ with " Moses, delivering 
him from the wrath of Pharaoh, 
conferring upon him the great offi- 
ces of prophet, lawgiver, interces- 



Permanent 
values. 



Gen.xxxix. 
2, 21. 



"' Iminan- 
uel" 

Isa. vii. 14. 

Luke i. 28. 



Gen. xxviil 
15. 

Gen. xxxii. 
27-28. 



IJO 



Mo 3^om in tfje 3nn 



Josh. i. 5. 
Josh. iii. 7. 



Divine 
providence. 



Acts xii. 

-10. 
Acts xvi. 
26. 



sor and leader. He was *' with '' 
Joshua, magnifying him in the sight 
of all Israel, making him a great 
conqueror and deliverer. 

This unseen Presence gives the 
clue to the interpretation of the 
Biblical biographies — of the book 
of Esther, for instance, where Je- 
hovah is not mentioned, but where 
His presence does everything — 
and to the true philosophy of all 
history. 

It is this which men of faith call 
divine providence. No better il- 
lustration at once of the significance 
of the phrase, and of the reality of 
the fact, can be found than this 
story of Joseph's imprisonment and 
deliverance. And the first and 
most important element in the great 
fact of the divine interference is, 
that commonly Providence works 
along perfectly natural lines. Some- 
times indeed an angel is sent to de- 
liver a Peter, or an earthquake to 



anil 0tf^tt interpretations; 



131 



help a Paul, but usually the hand of 
God is veiled in the seemingly natu- 
ral. 

Joseph, a good man, is in prison 
for loyalty to right, and the prob- 
lem is Joseph's deliverance. Two 
upper servants of an oriental king 
incur his displeasure and are cast 
into the same prison. Nothing 
could be more commonplace ! Such 
things happen every day. But this 
most commonplace circumstance is 
sufficient for the divine use. 

The imprisonment of the chief 
butler was, indeed, to be the means 
of Joseph's enlargement and exalta- 
tion, but yet we read *' Yet did not 
the chief butler remember Joseph, 
but forgat him." How long did 
Joseph have to wait upon the de- 
fective memory of the chief butler? 
*' And it came to pass at the end of 
two full years." 

Ah, there is the bitterness of the 
mystery ! *' Two full years ! " 



Gen. xl. 

1-23. 



Gen. xl. 23 



Gen. xli. i. 



Hope de- 
ferred. 



132 



i^o iSiOom in ttie Snn 



Matt. xi. 3. 



Delayed 
answers. 



'* Is this," a troubled servant asks, 
*' all that it means, ' The Lord was 
with Joseph'?" How often Jo- 
seph himself may have wondered if 
indeed Jehovah were God in Egypt, 
also if there were not truth in the 
Gentile conception of local and lim- 
ited gods. He may have wondered 
if indeed Jehovah thought upon 
and loved him. 

Two years pass slowly in a pris- 
on. We read how terribly a prison 
seems to have tried the faith of 
John the Baptist, when he asked 
" Art thou he that should come, 
or do we look for another? " The 
caged eagle of the wilderness grew 
heart-sick! Oh, the mysteries of 
the silences, of the delays of God! 

The delay of His judgment 
upon the evils which are desolating 
the earth, the delay of His answer 
to prayer, the delay of His deliver- 
ance of the righteous out of their 
affliction, the delay of the first ad- 
vent of the Lord Jesus Christ 



anb (jitter 3nterpretation£J 



^33 



I 



through slow centuries of evil and 
darkness, the delay of His second 
advent — all these are mysteries. 

Why should creation be left to 
groan in the bondage of corrup- 
tion; the saint to groan *^ waiting 
for the adoption, to wit, the re- 
demption of the body;" and the 
Spirit to groan in His temple of the 
natural body? 

Why does the Prince of Peace 
suffer still the horror of war on 
that earth which He has made and 
redeemed? Why does the Lord of 
Life permit still that earth to be 
ridged with graves and drenched 
with tears? 

Over all this, and within all this 
abides much that is mysterious. 
But we are not left altogether with- 
out light. The two years of the 
chief butler's forgetfulness and of 
Joseph's continued imprisonment 
were not, be sure, valueless or wast- 
ed years in Joseph's spiritual and 
intellectual history. 



Rom. viii. 
22-26. 



134 



i^ 3i^om m tfie Knn 



Prov. XXV. 
4. 



Isa. xl. 31. 



He heard much, thought deeply, 
communed, we may be sure, much 
with the God of Israel. 

He was being tempered in the 
fire of adversity, that he might be a 
fit instrument, in the hand of His 
God, when the time for his deliver- 
ance and exaltation should come. 

What is our attitude during 
God's delays? We may use the 
time in wicked accusings, or in fret- 
ful repinings, or we may use the 
time in that restful waiting upon 
the Lord of which the prophet says : 
'^ But they that wait upon the Lord 
shall renew their strength; they 
shall mount up with wings as 
eagles; they shall run and not be 
weary, and they shall walk and not 
faint." 



anb d^ttet Snterpretationji 



135 



DAVID AND JONATHAN 

"And Jonathan loved him as his own 
soul." I Sam. xviii. i. 



^T^HE love of Jonathan and Da- 
-*• vid was not only beautiful 
in itself, but affords a beautiful 
illustration of the love-character. 
** Love seeketh not her own." 

Jonathan was next in order of 
succession to the throne of Israel, 
and every motive of pride and am- 
bition would urge him, if not to as- 
sist his father's efforts to remove 
David, at least to do nothing to 
hinder those efforts. The upright, 
brave. God-fearing son of a bad 
father, he may well have felt an 
honest desire to reign, that he 
might redeem the family name from 
the shame put upon it by his father's 
tyranny and misgovernment. 

Brought up in expectation of the 
throne, accustomed to think of him- 
self as the heir, forming as so noble 



The su- 
preme test 
of love. 

I Cor. xiiL 
5- 



I Sam. 
xviii. 1-4, 



I Sam. XV. 
26-28. 



136 



iSo Eoom in tfte 3nn 



I Sam. 
xviii. 3. 



Rom, V. 5. 

John xvi. 
27. 



John xiii. n 



a nature must have done many plans 
for the good of his people, he is 
suddenly told that the royal line of 
Saul is set aside. 

For this he seems to have had 
nothing but the word of aged Sam- 
uel, but Jonathan knew that Sam- 
uel was God's spokesman to Israel, 
and that the disinheritance was a 
message from God. 

Then David appears, does his 
great exploit, and against all the 
pleadings of self-interest love knit 
the heart of Jonathan to the heart 
of David. Jonathan was a mightier 
conquest for David than the over- 
throw of boasting Goliath. The 
very crown of Israel was not a 
greater trophy than the love of 
Jonathan. 

The most precious gift of God 
is love — His own love, " For the 
Father himself loveth you, because 
ye have loved me, and have be- 
lieved that I came from God; " the 
love of His Son, who, " Having 



anb 0tf)tv Snterpretattong 



137 



loved his own which were in the 
world, he loved them unto the 
end; " the love of the Spirit, *^ For 
the love of the Spirit that ye strive 
together with me;*' and precious 
human love, the tests of which are : 
'Move seeketh not her own;" 
" love suffereth long and is kind." 
Jonathan illustrates the first ; Da- 
vid, in his behaviour toward Saul, 
gives an illustration not to be sur- 
passed [save in the ways of God 
with man] of the second. It is a 
unique characteristic of love; noth- 
ing else suffers long and is kind. 
Duty and stoicism can suffer long, 
but neither can suffer long and be 
kind* 

No one goes far into the secret of 
the Lord who has not come under 
the constraining power of love. It 
is the radical distinction between le- 
gal obedience, and gracious obedi- 
ence. 

Conscience, enlightened by the 



Rom. XV. 
30. 



I Cor. xiii. 
4, 5. 



The power 
of love. 

2 Cor. V. 
14. 



138 



i^o 3^om m tfie inn 



Matt, xxiii. 
23. 

Matt. XXV. 
27. 

Luke ii. 49. 

Luke ix. 
22, 



Yet 
not 1." 

Gal. ii. 20. 

2 Cor. V. 
I4» 15. 

2 Cor. iv. 
5. 



laws of God, says '' I ought." 
That is the obedience of duty. But 
the heart glowing with the love of 
God, says, " I must." The impera- 
tive of love is mightier than the 
imperative of law. 

Under the legal spirit Jonathan 
might have stepped resignedly aside 
to make way for David; under the 
love spirit Jonathan's passion was 
to make David king. 

The application of this sweet 
story is obvious. Let me state it in 
the thought of another. In every 
human heart there is a throne and 
a cross. When we come to Christ 
He is on the cross and self is on the 
throne. It is the marvel of the 
Gospel that He saves us by His 
cross — perfectly, eternally saves us 
— with no mention of our heart- 
throne. But even He cannot bless 
us with God's fullest, best blessings 
unless we are willing, for dear love's 
sake, to change places — to put 



anb 0ti)tt interpretations; 



139 



Christ on the throne, and self on 
the cross. And only the love-power 
of the Holy Spirit can win the vic- 
tory here. Then the blessed life 
begins. 

Much has been written about 
David's '* profound policy " dur- 
ing these years of waiting for the 
throne to which God had anointed 
him. Wisdom indeed there was, but 
wisdom inspired by loving insight. 
Hunted like a ^' partridge '' on 
the mountains of Israel, driven out- 
side the land amongst the Gentiles; 
his life attempted again and again 
by the king's hand, naught moved 
David to bitterness nor resentment. 
In all literature there is nothing 
nobler, nor more touching, than 
David's two addresses to Saul. 
Even the king's morose spirit yield- 
ed for the moment to David's un- 
conquerable sweetness. 

The gift of Christ is but the 
supreme proof of God's love to- 



Rom. viii. 



I Sam. 
xxvi. 20. 



I Sam. 
xxiv. 8-15. 

I Sam. 
xxvi. 17-20. 



The love 
of God. 



140 



i^o Hoom in tfje 3nn 



Gen. i. 26, 

Gen. ii. 8. 
Gen. iii. 6. 



Gen. iii. 8, 
9. 



Gen. vi. 5, 

7. 



I Pet. iii. 
20. 



Gen. ix. 
1-8. 



ward man. The history of the race 
is the record of the divine long- 
suffering and kindness. The dis- 
pensations have been but successive 
provings of the patience of the di- 
vine love toward the whole race. 

Creating man in innocency, and 
creating a paradise of beauty for 
his home, man disobeyed his Crea- 
tor at the first temptation. What 
that sin brought down was not di- 
vine wrath, but divine compassion. 
The Lord God Himself came down 
into the garden to seek and to save 
His ungrateful and sinful creatures. 
Again the race, knowing good and 
evil, chose evil rather than good. 
So vile did man become that mercy 
to unborn generations demanded 
the all but complete extermination 
of humanity. But even then " the 
longsuffering of God waited in the 
days of Noah, one hundred and 
twenty years." 

Saving one family through the 
flood, God put the earth Into the 



anb (0tfier Snterpretationss 



141 



hands of that family, and their de- 
scendants, to govern for Him. But 
once more man showed the Incur- 
able evil of the natural heart, and 
also the inexhaustible love of God. 
Instead of utterly destroying the 
race. He divided it by the barrier of 
language, and called out, in Abra- 
ham, another family. 

The history of Israel is but one 
long demonstration of the evil of 
fallen man, and of the fact that 
God will suffer long and be kind. 
Even the crucifixion of His Son 
but brought forth new proof of the 
unchangeable love of God, for to 
the Jews was the Gospel first sent. 

And the second coming of Christ 
is delayed only because He is 
" longsufifering to usward, not will- 
ing that any should perish, but that 
all should come to repentance.'^ 



Gen. xi. 
1-9. 

Gen. xii. i. 

Isa. V. i-i6= 

2 Chr. 
xxxvi. 
14-16. 



Acts iii. 
26. 



Acts i. 8. 



2 Pet. iii. 9. 



142 



^0 3l^oom in tfje 3nn 



The great- 
est thing. 

I Cor. xiii. 
13. 



Better than 
all best 
things. 



THE GREATEST THING 

"The greatest of these is love." 

1 Cor. xiii. 13. 



T 



HE theme of i Corinthians 
xiii., the ** New Testament 
Psalm," is the exaltation of love, 
not merely as the *' greatest thing 
in the world," but as the greatest 
thing in all worlds. 

Note first of all the divine meth- 
od in this exaltation of love. That 
method is, chiefly contrast, but con- 
trast not with things that are evil, 
but rather with things which would 
be supremely good if love were not 
better than they. 

The human way would be to say 
that love is greater and better than 
hatred, malice, uncharitableness, 
bitterness, evil speaking and like 
vices. The divine way is to take 
up, one after the other, things of 
almost infinite worth, and by con- 
trast with these, lift love into its 



anb 0^tx Snterpretationsi 



143 



right place of absolutely infinite 
worth. 

So here, love is greater than the 
mightiest gifts for service; greater 
than angelic and human eloquence 
combined; greater than the most 
absolute consecration and utter 
zeal; greater as a motive and a 
method than all other motives and 
methods; greater than knowledge; 
greater than faith; greater than 
hope. 

Then love is exalted by its quali- 
ties. It suffereth long and is kind; 
is void of envy, self-importance and 
vanity. Love governs the very 
manner, and is filled with patience 
and self-control. 

Then the Apostle comes back to 
the thought of verse two — love is 
better than knowledge. This is not 
to say that knowledge is not good, 
but, as Paul had already warned 
these knowledge-loving Greeks, 
*' Knowledge puffeth up, but love 
buildeth up/' There is a tendency 



I Cor. 
1-3. 



I Cor. 
13. 

I Cor. 
4-7. 



I Cor. 

8-12. 



I Cor. viii. 



144 



i^o Eoom in tfje 3nn 



Gen. iii. $. 



ATdjf knowl- 
edge but 
love, 

I Cor. ii. 



in knowledge to breed pride, and 
so the believer is reminded that 
with all his complacency of learn- 
ing he is but a child, or like one see- 
ing objects but dimly in an ill-light- 
ed mirror, and that as the starlight, 
though still shining, is swallowed 
up in the glory of the sunlight, so 
our tentative and imperfect knowl- 
edge, though true in its shadowy 
way, will *' vanish away '' when the 
full knowledge comes. 

In our age, when as never before 
mere knowledge is exalted as the 
supreme good, it is well worth lay- 
ing this lesson to heart. We are 
lavishing untold wealth on libraries 
and colleges, and this is well, but if 
this be all, or chief in our American 
thought, we shall learn in bitterness 
and overthrow, the old lesson of 
the Greek that there is no salva- 
tion in knowledge for either indi- 
viduals or nations. 

Already, in the small history of 



anb 0ti)tv interpretations; 



HS 



this small world, the race has seen 
much '* knowledge " vanish away. 
The Hamitic knowledge vanished 
in the Greek, and while the prod- 
uct of the Greek imagination is 
deathless, Aristotle has given way 
to Copernicus, iEsculapius to Lord 
Lister, and Archimedes to Edison 
— what folly to suppose that the 
knowledge of these moderns is any 
whit more eternal than the outworn 
knowledge of the ancients! 

The heart of this beautiful 
psalm lies in verse seven — Love is 
greater than faith and hope by as 
much as that which creates is greater 
than that which is created. Love is 
the greatest of the three cardinal 
graces because it creates the other 
two: '* Love believeth all things, 
hopeth all things." 

In the thirteenth chapter of Ro- 
mans love, as in Corinthians, is not 
an emotion, nor yet a principle, 
nor even a character, but an entity. 



The new 
personality 
— Love. 

Rom. xiii. 



146 



Jto 3l^oom in tfje 3nn 



Eph. iv. 24. 

2 Cor. V. 
17. 

Gal. vi. IS, 
R.V. 

John i. 12, 
13. 

I John iv. 
7, 8. 



a somewhat to which all the terms 
of personality may be applied. 
** Love is the fulfilling of the law/* 
consequently, '' he that loveth hath 
fulfilled the law.'* 

This fact should be allowed to 
possess the mind; that love, in the 
Pauline sense, is a state of being 
which may be conceived of most 
readily in terms of personality. 
This may be seen by the substitu- 
tion of the name of Christ in those 
great passages where love is de- 
scribed: ** Christ suffereth long and 
is kind, Christ vaunteth not him- 
self." 

So also, without violence, the 
'' new man " may be substituted. 
The new man suffereth long and is 
kind; is not easily provoked, think- 
eth no evil, beareth all things, be- 
lieveth all things. But the new 
man is the '^ new creation," the 
born again one, the child {teknon, 
literally " born one,") of God, and 
this new man, like his Creator, is 



anil 0t\)tt HJnterpretationjBi 



147 



Love, and therefore loves. That 
the manifestation of the new man 
in acts of love is so imperfect is 
due, of course, to the survival of 
*' the old man," and to the failure 
of the believer to *' walk in the 
Spirit," but the blessed fact re- 
mains always, that the new man is 
" love," and love is the fulfilling 
of the law. 

It is not that the believer is under 
the law, and becomes loving by ful- 
filling it. The precise contrary is 
true. He is not under the law, and 
the law worketh not love but wrath. 
But the believer is, as to his new 
man, ** love " and he is '* under 
grace " and so ^' loveth," fulfilling 
the law. He is under, not love of 
law, but the law of love. To be 
under law is vainly to seek by way 
of external obedience, to love God 
and the neighbor. To be under 
grace is to love God and the neigh- 
bor, by an interior constraint of the 



Not law 
but love, 

Rom. vi. 
14. 

Rom. iv. 
IS- 



Luke X, 
25-28. 



148 



Mo 3i^om in t^e Mn 



Rom. 
5. 



X. 4, 



Rom. viii. 
3, 4. 

Heb. viii. 



Heb. viii. 
10. 



renewed nature. Just as no man is 
really honest who abstains from 
stealing for fear of the penitentiary, 
so no man really fulfils the law 
through fear of the law. An hon- 
est man obeys the law because he is 
an honest man, in utter forgetful- 
ness, often, that there is a law. He 
'* fulfils the law " not because of 
the law, but because he ^' loves " the 
right conduct which, incidentally, 
the law approves. 

The believer '' loves " therefore 
not because the law commands him 
to love, but because in his new na- 
ture he is a loving man. This is 
the essence of the new covenant. 
^^ I will put my laws into their 
mind, and write them in their 
hearts." No better illustration can 
be found than mother love. Laws 
may be found on the statute books 
which prescribe penalties for the 
neglect of children by their parents ; 
but when a mother says " I must go 
to my child," she is not thinking of 



anb 0ti)tv 3nterpretationj( 



149 



the statute and its penalties. A 
law In her heart makes her say ** I 
must." She usually does not so 
much as know that there is a stat- 
ute. Yet v/hen tenderly caring for 
her child, in obedience to mother 
love, she is *' fulfilling '' the stat- 
ute. 



JOSEPH AND HIS 
BRETHREN 

"And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come 
near unto me, I pray you." Gen. xlv. 4. 

'TpHE reconciliation of Joseph 
•^ with his brethren is a beauti- 
ful illustration in the graces of for- 
giveness of injuries, and brotherly 
love, but it is also so overwhelm- 
ingly prophetical and typical that 
it would be a waste of opportunity 
to confine the exposition to the 
merely ethical import of the scene. 
Beyond doubt we have here a 
picture-prophecy of that future rec- 



A prophetic 
picture. 

Gen. xlv. 



Deut. XXX. 



ISO 



Mo 3l^oom in tfje 3nn 



Isa. xi. 

10-12. 

Jer. xxiii. 
7, 8. 

Ezk. xxxiv. 
11-16. 

Ezk. ^ 
xxxvii. 

21-25. 

Ezk. XX. 
33-42. 

Zech. xii. 
10. 



Rom. xi. I J 
2, 26, 27. 



The two 

advents. 

Acts ii. 23. 

Matt. xiii. 
11-13. 

Acts XV. 
14-17. 



onciliation of the Hebrew people 
to their long rejected Messiah, 
which is the theme of some of the 
most glowing pages of the proph- 
ets. The current notion, based up- 
on an entire misconception, or mis- 
reading of two New Testament pas- 
sages, that Israel, in the national 
sense, is forever rejected, is unwar- 
ranted by Scripture. On the con- 
trary, both the Old Testament and 
the New are at one in the declara- 
tion that the Hebrew people are to 
be restored to Palestine, converted, 
and then enter upon the period of 
their greatest earthly exaltation and 
distinction. 

In the divine knowledge lay not 
only the first advent and rejection 
of Messiah, but also the interval 
following, that is, the age in which 
we live, and which is marked by the 
'' mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven," and also by the calling out 
from among the Gentiles of the 



anb (0tf)er interpretations; 



151 



New Testament church, a Bride for 
Himself — typified by Asenath, Jo- 
seph's Egyptian bride — an interval 
which will terminate in His second 
advent for the restoration and con- 
version of Israel. 

The Old Testament prophets 
foretold both advents. The first, 
*' Rejoice greatly, O daughter of 
Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusa- 
lem : behold, thy King cometh unto 
thee: he is just, and having salva- 
tion; lowly, and riding upon an 
ass." And the second, '' And his 
feet shall stand in that day upon the 
Mount of Olives which is before 
Jerusalem . . . And the Lord 
shall be King over all the earth." 

The prophets were naturally 
enough exercised over the seeming 
paradox of their own prophecies, 
foretelling, as they did, both the 
sufferings of Messiah, '* He is 
despised and rejected of men; a 
man of sorrows, and acquainted 



Eph. V. 
25-32. 

2 Cor. xi. 



The pro- 
phetic per- 
plexity. 

Zech. ix. 9, 



Matt. 
5. 



XXI, 



Zech. xiv. 
4-9. 

Matt. xxiv. 
29-44. 



Isa. liii. 3. 



152 



i^o 3^om in tfje 3nn 



Isa. ix. 



I Pet. i. 

lO-II, 



with grief ... he was wounded 
for our transgressions, he was 
bruised for our iniquities," and in 
striking contrast, His earthly exalta- 
tion and glory: '* For unto us a 
child is born, unto us a son is given : 
and the government shall be upon 
his shoulder: and his name shall be 
called Wonderful, Counsellor, The 
Mighty God, the Everlasting Fa- 
ther, the Prince of Peace. Of the 
increase of his government and 
peace there shall be no end, upon 
the throne of David, and upon his 
kingdom, to order it, and to estab- 
lish it with judgment and with jus- 
tice from henceforth even forever." 
Peter tells us that '' they 
searched diligently " for a solution 
of their own apparently irreconcil- 
able writings, which in one breath 
made the coming One to be *' a 
Man of Sorrows," and in the next 
a resistless Sovereign *' executing 
justice and judgment in the earth," 
upon the restored throne of David. 



anb 0t^tt Snterpretations; 



^S3 



Then, according to Peter, they were 
assured, simply, that the prophecies 
were not to be fulfilled in their day. 
But they did not see the Church, 
for the Church is not in Old Testa- 
ment prophecy. *' How that by 
revelation he made known unto 
me (Paul) the mystery which in 
other ages was not made known un- 
to the sons of men as it is now re- 
vealed unto his holy apostles and 
prophets by the Spirit; that the 
Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and 
of the same body, and partakers 
of his promise in Christ by the 
Gospel." 

The prophetic testim.ony con- 
cerning the restoration of Israel 
may be thus summarized: 

I. When the Gentile Church, 
which is Christ's body, is complete, 
He will receive her unto Himself. 
" If I go and prepare a place for 
you, I will come again, and receive 
you unto myself, that where I am. 



Eph. iii. 

2-10. 



The restO' 
ration of 
Israel, 



John xiv. 
3. 

I Thess. iv. 
14-16. 

Acts XV. 
14-16. 



154 



j^o Boom in ttie Jinn 



Matt. xxiv. 
30. 



The 
church. 

Matt. xvi. 
1 8. 



Matt. ii. 

I, 2, 

Matt. iv. 
23. 



Matt. X. 

5-7. 

John xvi. 
12, 13. 



there ye may be also." This Is an 
absolutely new promise to an abso- 
lutely new body, the Church. It is 
never connected in Scripture with 
that which follows, viz. : His re- 
turn visibly to earth: "They shall 
see the Son of Man coming in the 
clouds of heaven, with power and 
great glory." 

Our Lord did no more respect- 
ing the Church than to announce 
His purpose to build it, Indeed He 
mentioned the Church but twice, 
using the word three times in His 
earthly life. He came as King of 
the Jews; accordingly spoke of 
the kingdom rather than the 
Church. 

To have developed the doctrine 
of the Church before His crucifix- 
ion and resurrection would have 
been mere confusion to His dis- 
ciples. It was one of the " many 
things " which they *' could not 
bear" and which was left for the 



anti 0tf^tt 3Jnterpretations{ 



^S5 



coming ministry of the Spirit; but 
He could sow the seed of that doc- 
trine, prepare the way for it, and 
that He did in the wonderful pas- 
sage in His High Priestly prayer: 
*' That they all may be one; as 
thou, Father, art in me, and I in 
thee, that they also may be one 
in us, that the world may believe 
that thou hast sent me." 

The essential truth concerning 
the Church is that it is the body of 
Christ. Our Lord's preparatory 
doctrine uses the similitude of a 
vine and its branches; the Comfort- 
er's completed doctrine uses the 
similitude of the human body: '^ As 
the body is one, and hath many 
members, and all the members of 
that one body, being mnay, are one 
body: so also is Christ. For by one 
Spirit are we all baptised into one 
body.'' 

2. He will restore the Davidic 
monarchy of which He is heir, 
and will regather dispersed Israel. 



John xvii. 
21-23. 



IV hat is 
the church f 

Eph. i. 22, 

I Cor. xii. 
12, 13. 

John XV. 
1-4. 



Acts XV. 
16, 17. 

Luke i. 22, 
33- 



156 



^ 3^om in tfie 3nn 



Rom, i. 3. 



Deut. XXX, 
6. 

Ezk. XX. 
33-42. 

Zcch. xii. 
10. 



'' After this I will return and will 
build again the tabernacle of David 
which is fallen down." 

3. He will reveal Himself to re- 
gathered Israel, and thus convert 
them. '* The Lord thy God will 
circumcise thy heart, and the heart 
of thy seed, to love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, that thou mayest live." 

No one can read the glowing and 
tender prophecies of this corning 
day of Israel's reconciliation with- 
out perceiving how great a place it 
holds in the heart of Jesus. How 
beautifully the reconciliation of Jo- 
seph and his brethren typifies this. 
Rejected and in intention slain, Jo- 
seph goes to the Gentile Egypt, 
where he becomes a blessing and re- 
ceives a bride. This done, the 
touching scene of the reconciliation 
follows. And this is precisely the 
prophetic order. 



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